


me and my mister for the rest of our life

by pixiepower



Series: twisted teeth, but i bet they’re gentle [1]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Feelings, Found Family, M/M, Meant To Be, Vampire Sex, it’s not a soulmate au but love is an instinct to all of us, powers, surprisingly not that macabre, “vampire sexi soonhan BIG FEELINGS seventeen”
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-10 06:22:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19901227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixiepower/pseuds/pixiepower
Summary: Jeonghan smiles back, lets his mind memorize Soonyoung’s features, trace imperceptibly over his lips, over — His teeth, even, sweet, rounded like gum, except. Except.And something flutters through his stomach like plum leaves on the wind, and he slides a fraction closer. Jeonghan’s never been called practical, but a death wish is new.•Jeonghan meets Soonyoung nightwalking the park, and lets him turn him into a vampire. Love at first bite, and other turns of phrase that Soonyoung would love.





	me and my mister for the rest of our life

**Author's Note:**

> title from 35mm’s “twisted teeth,” written by ryan scott oliver. 
> 
> written for the 2019 soonhan extravaganza! my first time participating in a fest, and wow was it rewarding!!!! this was originally supposed to be spicy vampire pwp more directly inspired by that song but it clearly, clearly veered off course. i should know myself better than that.
> 
> thank you could not be enough, chris. you’re always there for me, pey. and lastly: here it is, lianne. i hope you like it!

The first thing, and the last thing, Jeonghan remembers is his world splitting agape.

He tries not to be too dramatic about it (uncharacteristic, he knows), but he thinks he’s allowed a little poetic license; Soonyoung brings out that side of him. They exaggerate the story a little in front of company, retelling it with gothic flourish and romantic fervor, but that’s the thing of it: That’s how it felt.

That’s how it feels.

•

The Hangang River is quiet this time of morning, light gradient over the water but hours before light will start to crack like egg yolk over the sky. 

Jeonghan breathes in deeply, the air sweet with plum blossoms’ early morning dew as he strolls through the park along the waterfront. This is his favorite time, just his thoughts and the river walking together through his mind, flowing in a calm song. His mind is usually sprinting ahead of him, running laps along the sidewalk, but he lets it go.

The stillness of the air, clean crispness filling his lungs with nothing and rushing out again, always makes Jeonghan think of work. Which is absolutely stupid, because Jeonghan’s job is  _ boring,  _ is the exact kind of mindless office dronery he promised his childhood self he would never have, but once upon a time he got a college degree then a paid internship then a job offer and now he’s a salary slave, and the thought of doing it forever fills him with a dread like watery air, still and horrifying enough to drown.

The only part of it he wants to keep are his coworkers, his friends — his best friends, he mentally corrects himself, despite the fact that Jihoon only calls them best friends when he’s drunk on Friday nights. Jun, the best part of university who seems to have clung on like vines, not unwelcome, and Jeonghan’s cubicle mate Wonwoo. Those fresh-faced university kids from the tutoring center next door who happened to start eating lunch with them every day in the restaurant downstairs, Seokmin, Mingyu, and Hansol’s boundless energy recharging Jeonghan and Jun every lunch hour. The group of them, making the days bearable, making every day whole.

But they work overtime too, and they’re all adults too, and they can’t be together all the time, because life gets in the way, in that tricky, unlucky way it does where it makes the work hours grow long and tired and the hours at home with the people you care about such a relief, but short, like a sneeze. 

So Jeonghan spends time alone.

And he’s alone in the quiet, not even birds awake at this hour. And a sound floats along the river like wind moaning melancholy and it grips his chest tight. 

Something is wrong.

Something about it makes Jeonghan move slower, purposeful, marmalade steps as he approaches a backlit figure sitting just adjacent to the water’s edge. It’s not uncharacteristic of him, to run towards the unknown, not so strange to investigate a little danger.

“Hello,” he says, voice low as he takes a prim seat on the unoccupied edge of the bench.

The mournful sound softens, but it’s like nothing Jeonghan has ever heard before. It’s beautiful, intoxicating, and grips his heart with sympathy. Jeonghan doesn’t trust it. 

But he’ll bite.

“Are you okay?” he murmurs, gazing over the river instead of turning to face the source of the noise. He’s nothing if not stubborn.

A gentle sigh sounds from his left. “Not really,” they say, voice like light glittering off quartz, dimensional and smooth.

“Oh?” Jeonghan says, and turns his head slightly, catching in his periphery a face: moonbeam on the river, warm and soft.

Oh.

He lets his eyes trail along  _ such _ a face. Sees rounded features, pearlescent and smooth like pillowy marble, warmer than ivory in color and tone. There’s a translucence below the surface, and Jeonghan follows the slope of his nose, where something like tear tracks shimmer on the curve of his cheeks, the downturned corners of his eyes, and feels… something.

“I’m Jeonghan. Tell me about yourself,” Jeonghan says, against his better judgement.

“I live nearby,” he says.

Jeonghan snorts. “Coming on so strong so soon?” he laughs.

The face turns in earnest, surprised, and Jeonghan meets his gaze, teasing, challenging. Tries not to show his fascination too much, but Jeonghan lets a smile spread across his face when he rakes his eyes over Jeonghan’s face and body, almost hungry. This, Jeonghan can work with.

“I’m Soonyoung,” he says in response, like it answers Jeonghan’s question. And, in a way, it does.

“You’re here all alone, Soonyoung?” Jeonghan says, letting his voice lilt on his name. The curious way Soonyoung’s eyes flash and darken, lightning at dawn, gives him more unearned confidence, and he pushes himself to slide a little closer to where Soonyoung’s body is turned toward him, now.

“Always,” Soonyoung says, voice affected. But it is affected, something in Jeonghan’s stomach says. An affectation.

It’s clear that Soonyoung knows how to tug on heartstrings, bat his eyes, act cute, get his way, and a feeling settles over Jeonghan’s shoulders like he’s about to meet his match.

“Poor thing,” Jeonghan says, eyes gentle and slow smile pulling across his face. He’s in on the joke.

Shimmering cheeks aside, Soonyoung grins, then, wide, and it’s surprisingly sweet, the way the smile swallows his eyes. Jeonghan smiles back, lets his mind memorize Soonyoung’s features, trace imperceptibly over his lips, over —

His teeth, even, sweet, rounded like gum, except. Except.

And something flutters through his stomach like plum leaves on the wind, and he slides a fraction closer. Jeonghan’s never been called  _ practical,  _ but a death wish is new.

He catches Jeonghan, though, eyes flickering down to where Jeonghan’s hand is splayed on the cement of the bench and in the same instant, practically, back up to where Jeonghan can’t tear his eyes away from Soonyoung’s mouth. It snaps shut, corners pulling down in a pout, and it’s… cute. Jeonghan softens, a little.

“Soonyoung,” he breathes. A request. His eyes are wide, his face is open, and he wants to know how this is going to go.

Soonyoung’s pout deepens, and Jeonghan wants. Just a little. There’s gravity, there’s gravitas, there’s Soonyoung, so suddenly. Suddenly, but a little like he was always there.

“No one comes this close,” Soonyoung says, voice saccharine, and his eyes crinkle with mirth. “I was beginning to think I’m just not that pretty.”

“You’re full of it, sweetheart,” Jeonghan says with a laugh, but he runs a hand up Soonyoung’s arm comfortingly anyway. He’s freezing but there are no goosebumps, just smooth skin and toned muscle like an apex predator.

The flutter of Soonyoung’s eyelashes clinches it; Jeonghan pulls off his denim jacket in a practiced swoop and drapes it over Soonyoung’s shoulders, and his head snaps up the rest of the way, eyes meeting Jeonghan’s again, but with a glint, sparkling, garnets in the night.

“Mm, I think… I think you’re exactly what I think you are,” Jeonghan murmurs lowly. He can tell Soonyoung has power to spare from the way his arm tenses under Jeonghan’s hand, and the juxtaposition of his sensitivity and his strength is fascinating. Enticing. Endearing. He smiles and reaches up to brush Soonyoung’s hair off his forehead. “You’re sweet.”

And it only takes Jeonghan a moment to decide to do what he does next. When he wraps his arms around Soonyoung’s neck and presses their lips together, Soonyoung’s body may go absolutely still, but a soft sound purrs out of his throat and Jeonghan smiles even as Soonyoung pushes him back gently.

“You don’t know what I want to do to you,” Soonyoung says, voice pitched high with warning.

“If I had a hundred won for every time a man has told me that…” Jeonghan jokes, smirking and running a hand along the column of Soonyoung’s throat. He feels like topaz, warm-toned skin tinted pink as the sun starts to wink over the horizon in the distance.

“Jeonghan,” Soonyoung says. It’s a little desperate, laden with meaning, dripping with desire, and Jeonghan takes a moment to think about what he’s really saying.

His job. That’s an easy one. Jeonghan has banked sick time, vacation time, he could go away for a quarter year, practically, and he thinks maybe no one would care. Would he? Easily not.

His sister. His family. His chosen family, the ones who have stuck by him no matter what. Jeonghan continually tests their patience and they bend with him, cradling his landings every time, hands together, loyal and heartfelt. No, they’ll love him through anything. They’ll love Soonyoung, too, he thinks. He can feel it, instinct coursing through him, and who would he be to ignore his first instinct?

“I want it,” Jeonghan breathes, and unbuttons his shirt a few more buttons, letting it slip off his shoulder and brushing his hair away from his ear. He tilts his head to one side and looks at Soonyoung through his eyelashes. “I want you.”

And that’s all it takes.

Soonyoung looks taken over, eyes darker than the night passed by, and Jeonghan hasn’t a moment to fear, not that he would even given the time, before Soonyoung’s teeth have plunged into his neck.

•

Everything feels the same.

Well. Not exactly. But almost everything  _ is  _ the same, so Jeonghan supposes it’s unreasonable to have expected the world to taste different right away.

It feels like only an instant has passed, like the most vivid dream Jeonghan has ever had, and he could almost be fooled into thinking it was one.

But Soonyoung is there when he wakes, slow like a Sunday morning, minus the usual hangover and minus the light pouring through his bedroom window directly into his face because he keeps forgetting to rotate his blinds the other direction. So he knows it’s different now, despite the sameness. In spite of the sameness.

“Good morning, beautiful,” Soonyoung chirps, and he’s resting his chin on his hands where they’re folded, elbows on the little table in the corner of this room.

This room, where the windows are shuttered with sleek blackout curtains but light glows through every crevice besides. The sweep of air blustering up a layer of dust on some old books (well, maybe old, one of them looks like a manhwa Jeonghan’s sister used to read) piled haphazardly on the floor. This room, which has the grand mahogany four-poster bed with gauzy canopy he’s seen in every movie like the one he’s living, but a thin bookshelf that looks like it was stolen out of a college dorm. Jeonghan sees it all instantly, hardly has to turn his head, and feels a little like an owl must as every style of furniture ever created swims in his vision at once. He blinks hard to let it soak in.

“You have no taste,” Jeonghan hears himself saying, and Soonyoung’s face knits together with confusion.

“Jeonghan?” he asks, and Jeonghan feels like his head is buried in an hourglass, covered in sleep and sand. He blinks again and tries very hard to focus on just one thing. 

He decides it should be Soonyoung’s face.

It’s like he can see every cell of Soonyoung, every poreless millimeter of skin perfect like glazed pottery. Before he knows it, Jeonghan is reaching out, and Soonyoung is there, suddenly, wasn’t he just across the room?, and his fingertips brush the apple of Soonyoung’s cheek. His face, his skin, feels the same, if a lot warmer now.

“How do you feel?” Soonyoung says, and his front teeth sink into his bottom lip adorably, pointed canines on either side. He quivers with energy, like that’s just the first of an infinite amount of questions. It’s a good place to start, though, especially since Jeonghan suspects they have quite a long time to talk.

After a moment, Jeonghan says, “I see everything.”

Soonyoung leaps effortlessly and lands next to Jeonghan on the bed, and his face is delighted. “Like, how much everything? Like, ‘I’m taking it all in’ everything or ‘I can name every speck of dust in front of me’ everything?”

Jeonghan smiles, closed-mouthed. “The latter.”

Soonyoung’s eyes widen and his face splits into the sunniest smile Jeonghan has ever seen. The irony is not lost on him, but it’s so endearing he wonders if he should speak it aloud.

“Oh, wow. Oh, Chan is going to love this,” Soonyoung says, a little to himself.

“Soonyoung,” Jeonghan says, and wonders why his voice sounds so fond. For all intents and purposes, he has known Soonyoung for the better part of two waking hours. He should probably be more concerned about his decision, but it’s a little late for that now.

“Jeonghan!” Soonyoung  _ glitters. _

Jeonghan hums thoughtfully. “How long have you been like this?”

“My whole life!” Soonyoung says cheerfully, then considers. “Oh. You mean vampire-wise? About sixty years. Relatively short, considering.”

Sixty fucking — sixty  _ years?  _ Jeonghan closes his eyes to let his mind actually absorb some information, rather than be inundated with visual input, and he allows the phrase ‘vampire-wise’ to pong around his head like a little ball. It’s the first time Soonyoung has said it out loud, and it sure is something. He feels a little like he should have asked more questions beforehand, but better late than never.

“How old are you, then?” Jeonghan asks.

Soonyoung smiles, softer. “Twenty-two.”

Satisfied, Jeonghan opens his eyes. Then thinks of something, huffs, “I’m not calling you hyung, just so we’re clear—”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Soonyoung snickers, and Jeonghan finds that as he laughs in response, his teeth are bared despite his affection.

He reaches up, fingertips running along his gum coolly and brushing over where his canines have protruded elegantly, sleek ivory stronger than steel. The pit of his stomach tingles with discord, knowing  _ It’s me, I’ve been in this body my whole life,  _ and reconciling that with  _ I’m me, but stronger, unbreakable, what the fuck. _

With  _ I could have only ever dreamed to spend forever like this. _ It feels fatalistic. It feels like fate.

He has to ask.

“How long have  _ I  _ been like this?” 

Soonyoung sobers a little, reaches up to float his fingers just a hair’s width over Jeonghan’s neck. “You were turning for eight days.”

“Eight days!” Jeonghan shouts, eyes wide — too wide, ouch, there’s so much to look at,  _ fuck —  _ and slams his eyelids shut, gripping the silk sheets tighter than he feels like he should be able to, and then thinking about how he knows he can grip even tighter, disintegrate the silk fiber by fiber, but these are Soonyoung’s nice sheets that he’s been, what, thrashing in for eight fucking days, and he shouldn’t ruin them now, and should he even go back to work,  _ can _ he even go back to work, they must have called his family, has he been reported missing, oh  _ God,  _ he can’t  _ breathe— _

_ “Jeonghan,”  _ Soonyoung breathes, close to Jeonghan’s jaw, warm air of his breath sweeping over this  _ spot  _ on his neck, and Jeonghan feels something like euphoria wash over him, balance him out. Feels the anxiety dissipate like bubbles in wind.

“Is it supposed – supposed to feel like this?” Jeonghan says, voice shakier than he wants it to be, and Soonyoung nods, face a little remorseful despite how good Jeonghan feels, tingling through his legs to his toes.

“It’s your fang site. You have this… bond, with the one who turned you. If your instinct is close to taking over, I can soothe it. You were panicking and I didn’t want you to hurt yourself. I… I’m sorry I did it without asking, I won’t again.”

Jeonghan feels his chest rise and fall, wonders why it feels so still besides the phantom grip of panic washing away by the moment. He reaches up and splays a hand over his own chest, and feels nothing.

Knows, then, that this is real. That this is for real.

“Fuck.”

“I was surprised you kept your cool for so long,” Soonyoung says with that soft smile again. “Eight days is perfect, actually. We can’t all be Minghao and turn in ten hours.”

Jeonghan lies back down, lets his eyes flutter shut so he can think without the white noise of  _ vision  _ cluttering his headspace. Soonyoung talks, though, talks and talks, and it’s actually reassuring.

“Chan dealt with your workplace — not  _ dealt with  _ dealt with, he just called them, called out sick for you — he’s really very good with technology, I don’t even have a cell phone,” Soonyoung says, and lies next to Jeonghan, toes aligned, though Jeonghan is under the covers and Soonyoung lies atop them.

“I had to tell Chan and Seungcheol about you, I hope that’s okay, I was so excited, and your turning was going so well. They take care of everything, you know?” Soonyoung says, and turns to face Jeonghan, lying on his side and looking at him. He doesn’t need to see to know. Jeonghan’s eyes are shut but he can feel it, and the hypersensibility is striking.

“And of course Seungcheol told Joshua, you can’t be married for almost a hundred years and have secrets. I mean, not in our lifestyle, anyway,” Soonyoung laughs like he told a joke, and in his mind’s eye Jeonghan sees Soonyoung’s arm lift, so he tilts his head forward to meet Soonyoung’s hand where it reaches to card through his hair.

Soonyoung lets out a surprised noise but runs his strong nails against Jeonghan’s scalp anyway. It is soothing, sends a tingle thrumming down his spine like water running over his skin, Hangang River like the moment they met.

“I saw you,” Jeonghan says, eyes still shut.

“I could tell you were special,” is all Soonyoung says in response, and Jeonghan can tell it takes a lot for him not to say more. 

He doesn’t think that can be true. He’s been Jeonghan his whole life. He thinks he would know if being bossy, being a flirt, being argumentative and picking fights, being a little drone to capitalism, being  _ him,  _ being somehow too much and too little all the time— he would know if that meant he was special.

But Jeonghan acts a little proud, if only for Soonyoung. Pretty and warm and powerful Soonyoung. “I know,” he says, not really meaning it, and it makes Soonyoung laugh, swirl symbols against his hair. Runes, or Hangul, or a language Jeonghan doesn’t speak yet.

It feels nice. Jeonghan curls into it, feels a strong arm wrap around his waist, secure like a harness, like bungee cord, like safety before a leap.

Soonyoung pauses after a moment. “Are you afraid?”

Warm pyrope shining with concern greets Jeonghan when he tilts his face up and finally meets Soonyoung’s eyes, focused in on them and only them, and he says with absolute certainty, “No.”

•

Jeonghan is out for two more days, and when he finally wakes he takes a deep breath for the sake of it, to feel cool air fill his body and rush out like it was never there. He doesn’t think it fills his lungs. He doesn’t think it needs to.

The first thing he notices is that he’s alone, but that all the pillowcases are different, that he’s not wearing socks anymore, that there’s a purple, ruffly-petaled flower in the vase on the table in the corner. Someone was here, caring for the space. Caring for him. He sees it, instantly, and it’s a lot, but not nearly as overwhelming as it was when he first awoke.

The next thing he notices is that there is arguing outside the heavy door, tense and heated. It makes Jeonghan’s ears burn, and he pushes himself up to a seated position.

“...Soonie just thinks he can do whatever he wants and it’s not  _ fair,  _ Shua-hyung.”

“Seungkwan. You know he wasn’t doing it to hurt anybody. He has the eye, he must have felt —”

“He didn’t tell us until it was done!”

A different voice. “Well, he’s always had difficulty resisting his instincts. Give him time. It’s his first turn.”

“I  _ know  _ that, hyung. And he did it like it was nothing,” the first voice spits, and Jeonghan hears the scrape of a chair, legs screeching across limestone, four points like nails on a chalkboard, followed by the slamming of a door and a deep sigh.

Jeonghan swings his legs over the side of the bed and is startled by how his foothold feels lighter than a warm breath on a window, but so solid. He takes a few steps, throwing open the wardrobe and running his fingers over the mixture of shirts and blouses inside. Choosing a large button-up shirt that feels silk-smooth like Soonyoung, Jeonghan lets it hang loose over his linen pants, leaving his t-shirt folded up with his denim jacket on the corner table.

He pads toward the door and opens it tentatively, not content just to wait for Soonyoung to come back. Squinting preemptively to reduce the visual, Jeonghan walks through a short hallway and pauses at the entry of the kitchen to absorb two faces turned toward him with wide eyes.

“You must be Jeonghan,” one of them says from the stovetop where a kettle is coming up to a boil, and his face is soft, eyes kind. “My name is Joshua.” His voice is timbred warm like a space heater, enveloping Jeonghan in a feeling like every thought in his mind is on the tip of his tongue.

“Where is Soonyoung?” he hears himself saying, then furrows his brow. That’s not what he was going to say.

Joshua smiles knowingly, eyes bright and crow’s feet accentuated. It balances his face. Jeonghan likes it. “Soonyoung is at work, but he’ll be home soon. How are you feeling?”

“Good,” Jeonghan says honestly, and blinks. When his eyes reopen his mind has registered the bronzed gold band around Joshua’s ring finger, and a matching one on the hand at the kitchen table. “You’re Joshua’s husband, Seungcheol.” It’s not a question, and it comes unbidden.

An easy smile spreads across Seungcheol’s face, fangs gleaming in the broad toothiness of it. He’s handsome too, older-looking, from experience, Jeonghan guesses, and it’s becoming. “I am.”

Jeonghan nods, but winces when he feels a pressure curl up the back of his neck like the climbing ivy on his grandmother’s house.

“Shua, be patient,” Seungcheol murmurs, and the pressure drops off suddenly.

Freed, Jeonghan’s lip curls up mischievously. “Tell me about that.”

Joshua laughs, “I’m sorry, Jeonghan. Curiosity has gotten the better of us all week. I should have asked first.” He sounds a little guilty but the glint in his eyes, steel and wishbone, says  _ not entirely.  _ Jeonghan appreciates it, the wry and delicate way his lips purse like his fangs are hardly there, and grins back a little.

“Joshua has persuasion,” Seungcheol adds as explanation, and Jeonghan lets his eyebrows raise. “It’s… difficult to lie to him. Your first thought, or the strongest one, comes to the forefront, which can be useful. Normally he’s more subtle about it.”

Seungcheol gives Joshua a silent, deep-eyed look that carries the weight of a hundred years of love and fondness and exasperation, and when Joshua shrugs and pours the water from the kettle into mismatched mugs Jeonghan finally moves to sit down.

“You all say that. Where you say you should have asked,” Jeonghan says curiously, watches Seungcheol touch a calloused fingertip to Joshua’s ring when he hands him his mug. “We can drink tea?”

Joshua grins, too-pretty and fanged, but kind. “Yes. We don't need it, but we can. I like it, personally, but everyone’s taste varies.”

“You aren’t hungry, Jeonghan?” Seungcheol asks, as though he just thought of it, and his voice is concerned.

Jeonghan opens his mouth to refute Seungcheol, to assure him he’s fine, actually, but his eyes register the key turning in the front door and, in the same second, a wave of nausea crashes over him, roiling through his stomach and chest like fire licking up a wood column. He grips the kitchen table hard, barely registering the way the oak bends under his fingers, vision clouding white with pain.

“Soonyoung’s home,” Joshua says, at the same time Seungcheol says, “That answers that.”

Soonyoung drops his bag at the door the second Joshua throws it open, and in another instant, a hummingbird wingbeat, he’s gripping Jeonghan’s hand in his, fingers intertwined, anchoring him to  _ something.  _

“We’re going out,” Soonyoung says, and Jeonghan tries to laugh but thinks it comes out a snarl.

Before he knows it, Soonyoung pulls him outside, and the wind is warm, sickly-sweet, and all Jeonghan feels is  _ hungry hungry hungry,  _ pain and nausea surrounding him in the swirl of a storm. He has to make a concerted effort to focus on the way Soonyoung’s hand clutches his, stare at their fingers against each other, pearl and iris agate tightly bound, world flashing around them as Soonyoung takes him… somewhere.

And suddenly. The world is still but burns so bright, incinerating Jeonghan from the inside out.

“Do the thing,” Jeonghan chokes out, teeth clenched. “Please,” and it comes out strangled as he tilts his head the way he did their very first night.

It happens slowly, Soonyoung pulling their twined hands together up to Jeonghan’s neck, ghosting them over his fang site, and Jeonghan watches, sees every atom of air pulled into his periphery as Soonyoung surges forward and presses a kiss to his neck, breathy and cool.

“Jeonghan,” Soonyoung murmurs against his skin, teeth gentle and tongue laving over where Jeonghan needs it most. Right in the middle of the street.

Jeonghan’s knees buckle.

Soonyoung easily keeps him upright, hums a little, brushes Jeonghan’s hair off his face, little motions Jeonghan starts to capture all at once as his vision fades back in. “You’re okay, you’re okay,” he’s saying, voice colored cool purple with both worry and calm.

“Fuck,” Jeonghan says, and it comes out crackling like broken twigs underfoot. “I’m so hungry, Soonyoung.”

“I know, beautiful. Let’s go inside, okay?” Soonyoung says. He slides his arm around Jeonghan’s waist, and it’s then that Jeonghan blinks and sees where they are.

They’re still downtown. Myeongdong? Neon flickers in shop windows like shells glinting in sand, brightness diffused by frosted glass and shop windows. It’s no longer light out, probably an hour away from sundown. 

Jeonghan registers Soonyoung’s hand squeezing reassuringly at his hip, but Jeonghan can barely feel it under the debilitating physical  _ anguish  _ tearing through his body, rippling through it with electricity.

Soonyoung slides his hand over his mouth, thumb running over his canines, then presses it against the sleek metal numbers hanging against the nondescript door in between a beauty supply and a chicken shop. Jeonghan sees a hand turn the handle from the inside, and it swings inward.

“Soonie,” a man says in the doorframe, fond-cornered eyes giving way to elegant features, and Soonyoung nods his head with respect for a brief moment. Jeonghan tries to bow, clenches his teeth through the pain, and the man frowns at him. “Bring him inside.”

“I was at work, Minghao, and when I got home his first hunger started,” Soonyoung says, voice apologetic, guilty, and when his gaze flickers over to Jeonghan his eyes are sad. He follows in Minghao’s footsteps and guides Jeonghan beside him, letting him walk on his own but steadying him with a hand where the small of his back curves down.

Minghao glances over Jeonghan, evaluating. “You turned him?”

Soonyoung stares down at his feet instead of answering but, when he looks up, gives Jeonghan a small smile. A private smile. Jeonghan thinks he grimaces back.

Minghao hums in acknowledgement but doesn’t say anything else, and Jeonghan takes a moment, blinks and sees the whole establishment in a single moment. It’s one big room, softly lit like the break of day, light spreading up the walls gradient and soothing. Partitioned sitting areas, to lie or sit or play video games, with lights strung up in between. It looks kind of like the place where Hansol, Mingyu, and Seokmin work, the mentorship center next to his office, a little like that video they showed everyone in school of the Google campus, but with lower energy. Something aspirational.

Someone is laughing in one pod, soft like the rumble of a traincar as he talks to someone on his phone, videocalling by the looks of it. Jeonghan has another moment of  _ We can do that?  _ paired with the sudden realization that  _ Oh my God, I haven’t looked in a mirror in nearly two weeks. How do I look? Is my phone charged? Is it at home? Or at Soonyoung’s?  _ and he could probably spiral like that forever if Soonyoung’s hand wasn't brushing over the nape of his neck, fingertips anchoring him, iron and diamond. 

There’s a discordant, tiny echo of that mournful kind of cry again, this time from a tall girl sitting in the corner with an eyemask on, another girl braiding her long brown hair intricately, murmuring soothing words to her as she weeps and drinks a smoothie. Jeonghan thinks briefly that he’s been there, drunk and crying with Junhui holding up a pressed green juice to his mouth because he was trying to impress this hot gym rat he saw at the café, just… before all this. 

Remembers that once there was a  _ before all this,  _ and now there’s just this.

“What do you want to eat, Jeonghan?” Minghao is saying, and Jeonghan refocuses.

“Sorry?”

Instead of repeating himself, Minghao says, “I’ll just bring a smoothie to start, how about that,” and the silken tone of his voice rounds the corner with him as he heads into the back, leaving Soonyoung and Jeonghan to take a seat in a pod with sunflowers speckled across the half-height walls, painted like squishing fruit underfoot, pulsing with color and bursting with life. Just looking at them fills Jeonghan with a warmth and a sense of reassurance, even despite the pain rolling through him. 

“Oh, Minghao did these,” Soonyoung says, running his hand along the wall with familiarity.

“Will you tell me about him? Everyone?” Jeonghan says, curling up into himself to ease the tension coiling in his stomach and chest.

Soonyoung pulls Jeonghan’s legs into his lap, and runs his fingertips along the cinched edge of Jeonghan’s joggers, smooth hands tracing delicately along Jeonghan’s ankle bones.

“Chan founded our coven a very long time ago. He turned Minghao about, no exaggeration, six hundred years ago, and that was basically the start of it. Joshua and Seungcheol came to them turned, but the rest of us fell in when it was our time, pretty late after. Right after me it was Seungkwan, and now it’s you,” Soonyoung beams, and his hand squeezes Jeonghan’s calf excitedly, thumb rubbing little letters into the cotton behind his knee.

There’s little time to wonder if Soonyoung regrets it, regrets him. Looking at him, Jeonghan feels truth radiate from Soonyoung, the wide, open look on his face doing its best to assuage his flicker of worry as quick as it came. His conviction that Jeonghan belongs here, with them, in a coven, in  _ their  _ coven — 

But Minghao reappears in the entry of the station, quickly and silently, bearing a scarlet concoction in a pretty glass. The radish-redness of it refracts through the facets of the crystal, oddly formal for the comforting atmosphere, and the sight alone sets off a wave of comfort through Jeonghan’s middle.

“Take it slow, Jeonghan-ssi,” Minghao says, smiling softly when Jeonghan vibrates with all his restraint but handing him the glass anyway.

Soonyoung’s hand drifts upward, grips Jeonghan’s thigh with both soothing softness and grounding strength, and Jeonghan tries to focus on the way Soonyoung’s fingertips look sinking into the black of his linen pants, eyes trailing over the points of contact even through the cloudy haze. He takes a tentative sip through the straw, and the moment the smoothie hits his tongue his vision clicks back into place, all at once, and he winces. Too much color, too many points of perspective, too much light. Too much.

“Fuck,” he curses, and Soonyoung laughs softly, hands firm on Jeonghan’s thigh.

“How is it?” Minghao says, eyes appraising again, but soft, kind, six hundred years of compassion.

It’s like drinking water when you’re dehydrated, like the first cool drink after a long journey, like coming up for air when you thought you might drown, like nothing Jeonghan has felt before. He  _ needs _ it. He sucks another mouthful through the straw, effectively downing a third of the glass, and Minghao nods and laughs quietly.

Everything feels better, almost instantly.

Jeonghan takes a deep breath for familiarity’s sake, gripping Soonyoung’s shirt at his waist. “There you go, beautiful,” Soonyoung murmurs, soft into Jeonghan’s ear, and Jeonghan feels phantom heat flare over his cheeks, a memory of a blush.

“Is this—?” Jeonghan asks, turning the glass in one hand and watching the light dance over the carved detail, refracting and glinting over Minghao’s face like a disco ball. The elegance of it in this environment matches Minghao himself, the picture of every delicate vampire Jeonghan has ever seen in films, all dangling earrings and ruffled sleeves and long-legged propriety, but with kind eyes and a smile like the sun winking through a sheer cloud.

Minghao nods again. “It’s what we do. This is a haven. Where you can go if you’re new to the life or don’t know where or how to quell your hunger, or don’t wish to feed directly. We have a store of volunteer supply we utilize.”

“Basically a fancy, comfy blood bank,” Soonyoung says, and Jeonghan laughs a little at the look on Minghao’s face, long-suffering and patient and fond.

“It’s easiest to do it this way if you’re newly turned,” Minghao says, “It’s more familiar.”

“So, smoothie!” Soonyoung adds sweetly, then says with pride, “Minghao made this place for everyone. Isn’t it beautiful?”

Minghao drops his head to the side, face going bashful despite its lack of flush, and Jeonghan thinks briefly that it must be a power of Soonyoung’s, to just beam brightly and immediately fluster everyone around you. It must be so, if a six hundred-year-old being can go a little pink at the edges, even after knowing one another for fifty years.

“It is,” Jeonghan says, a little touched. “Thank you.”

Waving a hand, long pretty fingers laden with heavy bejeweled rings that are probably older than Jeonghan’s great-grandparents, Minghao smiles, closed-lipped. “That’s what we’re here for. I’ll see you back at the house, Soonyoung-ah?”

He runs his hand fondly over the back of Soonyoung’s head as he walks away, and Soonyoung nods vigorously, hair bouncing. Jeonghan’s still chest is impossibly filled with warmth, a candle flickering awake in an empty room.

Jeonghan smiles privately into his glass, then tips back the rest of its contents, swallowing easily. He sees Soonyoung’s gaze flit down to where Jeonghan is running his tongue over his fangs experimentally, and he feels stronger than ever before.

•

“No, it’s been  _ so _ long, please, Seungcheol, no—”

“That’s exactly why we need to do it, Soonyoung,  _ because  _ it’s been so long since we’ve had a convocation.”

“A coven convocation,” Soonyoung deadpans, as though the consonance is lost on him. Jeonghan gets the feeling Soonyoung has spent sixty years telling this joke, but he half-stifles a genuine laugh anyway, toeing at the skin of Soonyoung’s exposed ankle with a socked foot, both soft and smooth but different textures. Soonyoung smiles, pleased, down at the touch, all eyes and cheeks, and Jeonghan smiles too.

Seungcheol all but cornered them when Soonyoung came back from work, his sudden appearance springing them apart like a drama, the ghost of Soonyoung’s fingertips along Jeonghan’s face lingering in the doorway where they had reunited with one another. A moment played in reverse, bookends of Jeonghan’s time away from Soonyoung where he sends him off with a wave at the door like a sailor’s wife and greets him with a demure touch when he returns. 

He would be lying if he said it wasn’t his favorite part of the last couple of days. Grounding, a little, those few minutes.

But Seungcheol had called a convocation, whatever that means, which sets off two things: firstly, Soonyoung whining. And, secondly, like a supernatural Rube Goldberg machine, the creaks of several doors opening and shutting, resulting in the slow  _ (so _ slow, somehow? Dare Jeonghan say begrudging?) congregation of vampires in the library, where Soonyoung and Jeonghan share one armchair, Jeonghan sat upon Soonyoung’s lap. Seungkwan is perched uncomfortably in the desk chair in the center of the room, pointedly not looking at anyone but for where Seungcheol and Joshua lean against the desk side by side.

Chan shakes out his legs, stretching each of his limbs loosely before lying on the sofa like a cat. “You make it sound so dramatic, Seungcheol. I thought we decided to just call them house meetings thirty years ago.”

“Can’t I have just one moment where I put forth a good impression with our newest turn, Chan? Just one where I seem remotely competent? Maintain the illusion for that fleeting moment?” Seungcheol’s tone is frank and weary, and his eyes are soulful, and Jeonghan catches the fond way Chan blinks up at him, a languid apology, the place where their gazes meet both teasing and understanding.

“I’m feeling appropriately intimidated and awed, for what it’s worth,” Jeonghan offers, only half kidding.

Seungkwan exhales a snort. Jeonghan can’t figure out if it was a laugh let out in error or with derision, but Seungkwan’s body is distinctly turned away from him, so he can’t figure it out.

Joshua laughs, more loudly, purposeful, bells in a cathedral. “He said intimidated  _ and _ awed, Cheol,” he repeats placatingly, resting a comforting hand on Seungcheol’s thigh, pale and still against the black denim.

“Raise your hand if you respect me,” Seungcheol jokes, gummy fangs flashing as his head is tossed back and his eyes crinkle shut, arcs of long lashes in shallow-set hollows.

Every hand in the room goes up, thirty silvery fingers stretched toward the field panels lining the ceiling like they can run over the embossing, Jeonghan’s included, and Seungcheol suddenly looks close to tears. Coughing to clear his throat, Seungcheol taps his toe on the floor, steel-toed boot thunking heavily on the thick woven rug.

“Fuck, okay. Anyway.”

A soft giggle peals across the room from where Minghao leans against the bookcase, a sound that lights up Jeonghan’s chest with joy and makes Soonyoung smile against his shoulderblade from behind, too. A warmth spreads through the room, and Jeonghan can physically see tension melt out of everyone’s shoulders, even tightly-wound Seungkwan, just for a moment. 

“Hao has the right idea. We need to relax. Can’t we just play a game or something? Whenever we try to do one of these it’s always so serious, Seungcheol,” Chan says.

“Some things are serious,” Joshua says, and Minghao hums in agreement. Joshua catches Seungkwan’s eye and frowns. “It’s just for a little while. God forbid we pull an hour out of your eternity.”

“Yeah, well, it’s still time I can’t get back,” Seungkwan mutters, his first witting words in Jeonghan’s presence. Despite the cuttingness of it, his voice sounds hoarse, richness lying beneath, a truffle dropped in sawdust. Jeonghan gets the feeling that might be apt for Seungkwan as a whole, if the way he prickles every time Jeonghan glances his way is any indication.

But to make matters better, Chan huffs out a little laugh and reaches a foot out to tap Seungkwan on the thigh, at which he has the presence to look a little admonished.

Each moment is ephemeral, and Jeonghan is getting used to the way it feels to have everything moving at his new pace, framerate clicked up to his new maximum, his entire field of vision fluid and smooth and clear. It makes the acclimation easier, knowing that Soonyoung is there behind him — both literally and figuratively, but also knowing that everyone in the room has all been here. Some more recently than others, Jeonghan knows, turning to glance a little longer at Chan’s handsome, perpetually youthful face, but he gets the feeling they’ll be forgiving. 

Jaw tightening, Seungkwan crosses his legs at the ankle. Well, hopefully. 

“We can do things however we want, we know we’re kind of different. We don’t need to do the ‘we’re a cool coven, we don’t wear cravats’ thing,” Soonyoung says, gesticulating with a soft hand in the free space next to Jeonghan’s head.

“Cravats were Western nonsense the first time around, and you know none of the traditional covens on this continent even wear them,” Minghao volleys, and Jeonghan laughs softly. Soonyoung’s hand comes down on his thigh, a chastising little  _ hey, support me.  _ Jeonghan threads their fingers, cradling their linked hands in his free one, cupping delicately where the cool columns weave together.

Soonyoung grumbles, “You know what I mean! It’s the twentieth century! We’re not a hanbok coven!” 

That’s true, to say the least. Jeonghan’s last few days have been spent tallying the things he knows about vampires, lining them up against everything he thought he knew. Superficially speaking, Seungcheol’s rugged-casual, dark utility denim and leather, Joshua’s pressed cotton and light-wash denim, Chan’s street fashion and athleisure, it all goes toe to toe with Minghao’s gauzy sleeves and heavy jewelry, ever the picture of a gothic manhwa character, all long limbs and pretty features. Soonyoung called him the “perfect vampire” once, and it checks out, but it’s more than that.

“The point is!” Seungcheol says, low voice rounding through the exclamation, “Regardless of what type of coven we are, if he’ll have us, we do have a new member of our coven in our midst.”

Jeonghan startles a little.

“I get a choice?” he asks, and feels Soonyoung’s hand tighten in his.

“Of course you do,” Chan says. He doesn’t stand, but Seungcheol smiles like he has the floor, so he goes on. “Cheol is the leader now, but I started this shit. And this life means a lot comes and goes without you. I never wanted anyone to think they were trapped here, or with me. There’s enough of those decisions made without you before you even get to this point. That’s why I think we’re special. We choose each other, even when the world is wide open to us.”

Oh.

And it makes sense, but it kind of also makes Jeonghan feel, well, awed.

“‘Kind of different,’” Jeonghan echoes. He’s distinctly aware of the feeling of Soonyoung’s fingers against his, sure and soft, and the inexplicable heat of six pairs of eyes boring through his skin, feeling translucent like rice paper, even impenetrable as it feels now. He wants to say a lot, but even stronger is the urge to laugh it all off, embrace his lack of fear but mask it all with a cavalier attitude, cover up how much he wants to belong here, too. There’s an unnameable sensation in the bottoms of his feet, like when he went to the beach with his family and the feeling of the fish nibbling at the skin sort of made him want to throw up, and he has trouble finding the words he needs. 

He looks at Joshua meaningfully, and Joshua nods. The warmth like vines, ivy trellis pressure, winds up the back of his neck and urges his train of thought out, a gentle push where he needs it most. Jeonghan smiles gratefully and says, “I don’t really know what drew me here. Soonyoung’s face and body, probably.”

Soonyoung laughs, delighted pride lighting up his voice behind Jeonghan’s ears, and Jeonghan grins sheepishly.

“It was a split-second choice, and I know it was reckless of me not to consider the consequences. But the more time I spend here, with him, with you, the more I want to be here. If that’s okay,” says Jeonghan, words sure, the prickle against his skin like Joshua’s steadying palm on the back of his head, but gnarled with tentativeness as they meander out from under his fangs.

Seungkwan’s hackles are raised, and Jeonghan can see the tense of his jaw, his tongue pressed against his fangs within the confines of his mouth, unreadable disdain like a language Jeonghan doesn’t speak yet, where he doesn’t need to understand to feel anger boil in the tone.

“It wasn’t just you, Jeonghan. It takes two to turn, and Soonyoung knows that,” Joshua says carefully, and Jeonghan feels the handless touch lift off slowly.

Jeonghan leans back a few centimeters to catch Soonyoung’s expression in his periphery, clear like a lens snapping into focus all the way to where the edges drop off. Soonyoung’s mouth is pursed, bottom lip plush under his fangs, and Jeonghan feels overtaken by the sudden urge to touch, to run his fingertips over it, pearls on velvet. But Soonyoung’s expression is torn, a cocktail of pleasant receipt of attention by all the members of the coven and concern that the point of the convocation is really to scold him.

“Do you need to vote, or…?”

Seungcheol shakes his head. “No. We’re a coven because each of us agree. We’re adults, so we handle things like adults. If you want to be part of this coven, then you are.”

“I do,” Jeonghan says, and it floats out easy. A pleasant surprise.

“Then welcome.”

Soonyoung’s arms wrap tighter around Jeonghan’s middle, fingers finding their way under the hem of his shirt to press comfortingly against the sides of his stomach. Jeonghan feels, briefly, a wonder that they could anchor one another, and not just him.

•

In the mornings, Jeonghan goes for a walk by the river with Soonyoung, that still, clear time in the late, late darkness and before the earliest light. They get to share it now. The company isn’t nearly as quiet as it used to be, but Jeonghan doesn’t mind.

He lets Soonyoung take his hand, and it feels like a key. The last pin slides into place, shear line aligned, and something unlocks.

He knows where the cups are kept in the coven house, which of Soonyoung’s floorboards creak like they’re letting out ghosts. He knows that the old freedom flags flown above the entry bay window were put there when Seungcheol and Joshua arrived, and how Chan’s eyes brighten like turning on your phone flashlight in the middle of the night when Jeonghan describes his sight. Everything is starting to feel like it’s clicking into place, like he really can fit in to this whole new little world he lives in with Soonyoung.

But then Minghao comes home and reminisces with Chan about the way flowers grew in the third century of the Joseon dynasty and he’s jolted out of this illusion of comfort all over again. Then Seungkwan gives him the dirtiest look when he shoves past Jeonghan to go to work and the crushing weight of mediocrity slams back down on his shoulders.

Forever still seems like such an abstract concept. Every moment Jeonghan has lived the past week and a half feels surreal and normal and brand-new and ordinary all at once. He knows he has to go back to his life soon, has to return to work soon, has to let go of Soonyoung’s hand soon.

But Jeonghan wants this part to last forever.

“Honeymoon almost over?” Soonyoung asks when they get back to the coven house, voice affected sadly like he senses unrest in Jeonghan.

“Boring honeymoon, if so. Nobody deflowered anyone,” Jeonghan laughs, the joke floating out easier than an answer.

It makes Soonyoung grin, and it’s moments like these that Jeonghan is grateful he can see it all at once, that he doesn’t have to waste a millisecond tearing his gaze away from any part of Soonyoung’s face. Soft hair falling in his eyes like summer leaves and sinewy branches bearing plums, deep and sweet. The gentle slope of his nose, apple-meat cheekbones, lips like a painting come alive.

And the smile.  _ Oh, _ his smile. Infinity looks so good on Soonyoung’s face. Even before, Jeonghan tells him, his face was probably timeless. It makes Soonyoung giggle, eyes crinkling, pleased in the corners, and Jeonghan feels deeply happy somewhere in his chest where his heart used to beat.

Soonyoung has that smile on now, that mischievous grin like they’re sharing a joke, and Jeonghan’s body tingles with something not just physical.

“Are you gonna kiss me now? I would like you to know I have been extremely patient,” Soonyoung says with only the faintest hint of irony. Jeonghan laughs and yanks Soonyoung forward by the tie on his pants to knock flush against him, chest to toe.

He doesn’t know, now, why he waited so long. All this started with a kiss, after all.

And so it continues, Jeonghan crushing Soonyoung’s lips against his, meeting him pound for pound when Soonyoung purrs in the back of his throat and presses closer. Soonyoung’s hands slide over Jeonghan’s back like he can’t figure out if he wants to tug at his hair or grope his backside, and it makes something delicious curl inside Jeonghan’s stomach, warmth fanning out lowly. He reaches back to nudge one of Soonyoung’s hands downward, and lets his eyes flutter shut at the feeling of Soonyoung’s hand slipping between his underwear and his jeans, sliding over the curve, palm snug and sure between the layers.

Kissing Soonyoung feels like forever in an instant, feels perfect. It’s hot, and sweet, and Jeonghan feels  _ good.  _ Like he’s climbing toward something he’s been dreaming of. Soonyoung sounds so pretty against him, humming little satisfied noises in the back of his throat as they meet over and over, and he needs to know.

“Why did you choose me?” Jeonghan murmurs against the downturned corner of Soonyoung’s lips before he can stop himself.

When he pulls back for a moment, Soonyoung’s gaze is dark and bright, galaxies through the eye of a telescope, and he smiles softly, running his hands over Jeonghan’s chest and shoulders in his t-shirt, up the nape of his neck into his hair, ghosting over his fang site. Hands all over. Touching, feeling. 

“I could feel it,” he whispers back. “That it was meant to be you. My instinct…” Soonyoung trails off, biting his lip, and Jeonghan wants to surge forward and kiss it. He’s practicing this whole restraint thing right now, though, so he just kisses the tips of Soonyoung’s fingers when they brush past his jaw. 

“I wanted you, and the universe agreed?” Jeonghan laughs a little, hopeful, pit of his stomach wanting wanting wanting it to be true, and Soonyoung’s eyes go beautifully, impossibly brighter.

He breathes, “Yes,” with an ecstatic sort of smile, and it makes something in Jeonghan’s body flicker awake.

Soonyoung lets out a squeak when the force of Jeonghan’s kiss knocks him backwards a little, and the mahogany of the bedpost groans under topaz fingertips where Soonyoung shoots one hand out to steady them.

“You don’t know your own strength,” Soonyoung murmurs into the kiss, tongue delicately flicking over Jeonghan’s fangs and into his mouth.

“Then show me yours,” Jeonghan says when they pull apart again, voice sultry, hands wandering down Soonyoung’s toned arms in his hoodie, cotton jersey soft but looking for skin even softer. He grasps the hem and pulls it over Soonyoung’s head.

The planes of his skin are a lot to take in all at once, softness and muscle in kind, everything in perfect balance. Jeonghan drops to his knees, a little in reverence, but mostly to mouth at the waistband of Soonyoung’s pants, tongue teasing lines where the fabric is slung low on his hips. Soonyoung tips his head back with a groan, and Jeonghan runs both his hands up the expanse of his chest, cool and smooth like cabochon, parallel comet tails up to the hollow of his throat, tracing delicately around his fang site, careful not to touch it directly.

Never one to care much about the right time for things, Jeonghan asks, “Who turned you?” voice muffled a little against the gentle slope of Soonyoung’s tummy. He presses a kiss below his bellybutton, which makes Soonyoung wriggle his hips and let out a huff of air cutely.

“Chan,” Soonyoung says tightly, eyeing Jeonghan from above.

Hm. Jeonghan stands up on his knees a little, reaches up and rakes his nails up and down Soonyoung’s neck, stopping just shy of the shadow above his right collarbone. Soonyoung’s fangs sink into his bottom lip, the plush raspberry of it calling to Jeonghan. 

“So he…?” Jeonghan sighs with a frown, mouth a little offset, letting a pinprick of jealousy take hold and move his fingertips gently against the clean mark of Soonyoung’s fang site, neat and tidy at the junction of his neck and shoulder.

It’s not that he has the right to be envious, he  _ met  _ Chan, but Jeonghan wonders if Soonyoung ever needed Chan to murmur his name over his neck, ever felt the knee-buckling wave of relief tinged with desire and connection, of  _ thank you,  _ of subdued but ever-present  _ want.  _ And it tugs at the pit of his stomach from the base of his spine, so he presses on Soonyoung’s fang site, fingertips possessive and claiming even where they maybe shouldn’t be.

At the sensation, Soonyoung exhales satisfactorily, head knocking against the bedpost as he reels from it. “The story isn’t very sexy, can I save it for later? Really just want you inside me, Jeonghannie,” he says, and rolls his hips a little for effect.

The sweet way Soonyoung tapers Jeonghan’s name off into a whine sparks through Jeonghan, fanning candlelight into oil-fed flame, and he compartmentalizes, saves the questions about the particulars in a mental file folder, but keeps the hooded-eye way he holds Soonyoung’s gaze. Hungry. Jeonghan rocks back on his heels and tugs Soonyoung’s bottoms down, mouthing at the gentle dip of his iliac furrow teasingly instead of giving his hardening cock any attention.

“Jeonghannie,” he whines again, breathy with anticipation, and it soars into a heart-gripping moan when Jeonghan takes him into his mouth with a bob of his head, fangs scraping lightly as he takes it down.

Even before, Jeonghan has always been good at this, but as he works Soonyoung’s cock, his fresh eyes can see each little shudder of Soonyoung’s shoulders, can watch the minutiae of his hand flexing, tightening on the polished wood at the foot of the bed, can see his jaw clench and unclench, and all of it is definitely going to inflate Jeonghan’s ego. He pulls off deliberately slowly, licks a leisurely stripe up the underside of Soonyoung’s dick, tongues delicately at the frenulum, and Soonyoung growls a little in the back of his throat, hips stuttering against Jeonghan’s mouth.

He leans down, grabs at the front of Jeonghan’s shirt, and Jeonghan watches Soonyoung’s hands tighten their grip and a ripple of strength tense his toned arm muscles, and finds himself lying back on the bed in what feels like a millisecond.

“Did you just—?”

Jeonghan’s face probably looks incredulous with a thousand other questions, but instead of a reply Soonyoung just bares his fangs in a saccharine grin, reappearing at Jeonghan’s feet gripping a pretty little glass bottle in his hand. Jeonghan sees it, the soft camel brown of the cork filtered through the glass a little, and says delightedly, “Please tell me that’s lube.”

Soonyoung crawls up over Jeonghan’s lower body, using the first two fingers on each hand to effortlessly tear his jeans down the center of his thighs, shoving them off haphazardly. It’s such a casual display of power, Jeonghan feels his dick twitch with interest; they may both be vampires, but Soonyoung has had years of practice, and knowing he can probably easily overpower Jeonghan makes his haste to push down his briefs all the more understandable, in his humble opinion.

Sweeping denim ribbons off the edge of the bed, Soonyoung settles prettily between Jeonghan’s spread legs, gazing up at him warmly, blinking slow and hot like magma. “I told you I’m impatient,” Soonyoung says lowly as he uncorks the tiny fancy bottle, and Jeonghan laughs hoarsely.

“Silk sheets, crystal lube bottle, you know, Soonyoung-ah, this vampire experience is much more luxurious than I expected.”

“You don’t know the half of it, beautiful,” Soonyoung giggles as he tips the bottle’s contents out onto his fingers, reaching back to work himself open. 

It’s all Jeonghan can do just to watch, take it in, let his cock jump and his heart drink in the delicious, needy little noises Soonyoung is making, all but poured in his lap.

Jeonghan is hard — impossible not to be, from the way Soonyoung gasps a little when he must add another finger, the way he’s so close to Jeonghan, inching ever closer, the lewd way his lips are parted and his eyes roll back with pleasure, the way every fluttering eyelash is within his sight, the way he whimpers Jeonghan’s name and bites his lip so sweetly, the way his arm tenses when Soonyoung pauses to  _ look _ at Jeonghan.

“Ready?” Jeonghan breathes, and Soonyoung is on him like a crack of lightning. The speed at which he moves is befitting of his usual energy, and Jeonghan likes the way Soonyoung can sometimes take him by surprise. 

Not much does, anymore, if he’s honest, not that he was all that easy to startle beforehand.

Pinned with the balance of one of Soonyoung’s hands on his chest, Bernini sculpted, marble sinking into marble, Jeonghan watches rapturously as Soonyoung nudges the head of his cock against his rim, sinking down definitively. Grinding down almost instantly, Soonyoung hisses, percussive against Jeonghan’s airy moan, and pitches forward, wraps his arms around Jeonghan’s neck.

Sinful can’t be the right word to describe it. Jeonghan doesn’t really know what it all means, sin and virtue and the droll tromboning of moral analysis long forgotten from his first year of university. He does know the way Soonyoung’s hips rock, driving Jeonghan deeper into him, is purely supernatural, though he thinks absently it’s a safe bet Soonyoung turned all those years ago with this skill in his arsenal to start with. 

Soonyoung’s little  _ ah, ah, ah, Jeonghans _ are beautiful enough to call a hymn, enough to make the precome slipping between their stomachs feel like certainty, inevitability. 

Like the rest of this has.

Forever doesn’t feel like long enough, suddenly, and Jeonghan is overwhelmed with the sense that he could easily do this with Soonyoung forever. Not just this, necessarily, not this alone. But be with Soonyoung, be Soonyoung’s.

“Soonyoung,” Jeonghan pants, sibilant and breathless into Soonyoung’s ear, as though he still needs breath, as though his desire reached inside and tugged on his soul.

At the color of Jeonghan’s voice, Soonyoung’s eyes flutter open, meeting Jeonghan’s, black-black, serendibite glittering and deep and debauched. 

“Oh, just like that,” Soonyoung cries when Jeonghan’s hips fuck up into him, meeting him when he drops down, the drag tight and intimate, breaking away from his mouth to kiss at Jeonghan’s cheeks and wrap a hand around his own leaking dick. “Please, Jeonghannie,” he moans, pitched and gorgeous.

“Yeah, baby?” he manages in reply, and Jeonghan gets a hand on the nape of Soonyoung’s neck, hair a soft contrast under practically translucent skin. 

Soonyoung is bouncing on his cock, meeting the snap of Jeonghan’s hips like they aren’t both shaking with the force of it, fingertips of his free hand sunken purchase against Jeonghan’s shoulderblades, and all Jeonghan wants to do is kiss him, swallow his pretty moans and whimpers, let him fall apart, thank him for everything.

So he does, pulling Soonyoung impossibly closer for a bruising kiss, mouthing hotly against one another, exhaling like the memory of needing to breathe, of wanting to breathe each other in even if they can’t, really. Soonyoung’s back arches, and he’s grinding down hard and coming over his own fingers with a drawn-out whine, beautiful, wooden wind chimes in a river breeze. The sight of it, in his vision all at once like the flash of a camera shutter, tips Jeonghan over the edge with a ragged moan, pressing deep into Soonyoung as they rock through it together, holding his waist tight.

They kiss, fangs brushing as they crash together, cymbals like forever, like love.

•

“No dick is two-weeks-vacation good,” Jihoon says with a grumble, and Jeonghan can imagine he’s crossing his arms, if that were possible while he’s on the phone. Maybe he has his AirPods in. “You’ve been away so long that the kid, that intern in HR, he thought he could talk to me after the morning meeting yesterday. Do you understand how humiliating that is? That he thought I was approachable? And it’s all your fault.”

“Don’t worry, I’m back starting tomorrow. Your intimidating aura will recover and your desk shall be peaceful once more,” Jeonghan laughs into the phone as he slides his key into the door, yanking his free hand back when the door swings inward before he can fully turn it in the lock.

As soon as the door is flung open, Jun is throwing his arms around Jeonghan in a hug that would normally be crushing. He pulls back and narrows his eyes, glancing down at Jeonghan’s torso suspiciously.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asks Jeonghan in lieu of a greeting, looking back at everyone in the living room for confirmation, or backup.

It’s like going from standard definition to HD, reconciling his memories of the apartment he shares with Jun with the new way he sees it all. Hansol on the couch with Mingyu, Wonwoo and Jihoon in the kitchen, Jun and Seokmin flanking him at the door. Jeonghan is touched, genuinely, at the sight of all of them piled into the apartment; it’s so familiar, the enveloping warmth of coming home to the ones he cares about. To smell the candles Mingyu bought him for Christmas last year, to see Wonwoo’s magnets meticulously arranged on the refrigerator, to see it all at once, to blink and feel like he’s where he belongs, where he knows how to be who he is. Jeonghan doesn’t know if he can physically cry anymore, but a tightness in his throat threatens him with the possibility, even as he casually slides his cell phone into his back pocket.

Seokmin leans his head in curiously. “He looks good, don’t be mean, hyung.”

Jeonghan can’t help but preen a little at that, letting a wry grin spread across his face involuntarily, and the room falls into silence, even Seokmin. He sees their eyes widen, Jihoon’s face go a little ashen, their lines of sight drop simultaneously to his fangs, delicate but obvious.

The silence lingers. If Jeonghan got embarrassed, this would be that kind of moment. But he doesn’t, and lets the silence trail on. Waiting. He has time to wait, and the thought makes him smirk a little to himself.

Wonwoo, ever the conflict mediator, says something first, breaking the quiet with his low voice. “Oh, this is just fucking like you,” he deadpans, the hint of a laugh dancing around the edges of it. “Of course hyung would meet a hot vampire and take a two-week sex vacation and get to stride back into work tomorrow like… this. Of  _ course _ you did, Jeonghan.”

“It is very on-brand for you, hyung,” Hansol says cheerfully, and Jeonghan tries to flip through his guilt and pride and decide which one will end up heads up.

“Who said anything about a sex vacation?” Jeonghan huffs.

“If you can tell me, honestly, that I am wrong, I will give you two weeks out of my own vacation pay to make up for it,” Wonwoo says challengingly, eyelids low with disbelief. They have known each other too long now for him to be anything but certain, and Jeonghan meets his eyes, both of them letting humor flicker over their gaze.

Pride wins. 

Jeonghan runs his tongue over his fangs smugly, lip curling. “His name is Soonyoung.”

The commotion picks up, then, a game show rapid-fire of questions from all corners of the room. 

Jeonghan thinks it would probably be overwhelming if he weren’t like this now, but considers that if he  _ weren’t _ like this, this wouldn’t be happening at all. One of those standstill moments where he wonders if the seconds crawl by differently for him now, if the way he can somehow see the automatic light turn off in Jun’s room around the corner at the end of the hall is going to change anything. Or everything. 

He tries not to think about their lives going on without him, and then his going on without them, in decades and in eons. 

It makes Jeonghan want to cry, again, suddenly, and Seokmin notices, because of course he does. He reaches over and threads his fingers through Jeonghan’s reassuringly, and Jeonghan looks up into his earnest face and smiles, real and wide, and forgets his fangs for a moment.

They’re interested, they’re curious, they want to know everything. And it’s not like vampires are even a secret — there are enough of them in the country, the world, swept under the rug, kicked under the refrigerator like a stray ice cube. An open secret, just enough of them to be known in that little way where people don’t really say anything. But they look. And they know.

Jeonghan remembers a classmate from college, top of their class, pretty and strong. He always thought Mina was a gymnast, or a dancer, and he supposes he could have been right, still, but mostly he remembers her glee after turning in her final exam, and the shy flash of her fangs behind her hand when she climbed up the steps of the lecture hall after. He wondered then how many times she had taken this same class over the centuries, a little bitter and a little jealous about her advantage. He wonders now how many different classes she’s taken, how hungry to learn something new she must have been.

How long forever must feel when the world keeps changing and some things never do.

Jeonghan just hopes the best parts of his life don’t change. 

He glances around the room fondly, and catches Mingyu staring, chewing on his lip. Mingyu’s eyes are wide and shiny, pots of molten bronze. “Hyung, do you think you could lift me?” he says quietly, voice and face wide open with hope. 

Seokmin nods vigorously in support, head swiveling between Jeonghan and Mingyu with interest.

Jihoon’s face wrinkles some, nose scrunching with distaste even as his eyes drip with resignation. His face says  _ We need to take these kids back to the pound,  _ something he has verbalized on more than one occasion. But he doesn’t make any move to leave, eyes narrowed with interest and laser-locked onto Jeonghan’s arms.

Shrugging a little, Jeonghan says, voice heavy with implication, “Soonie tells me I’m strong,” which makes Mingyu swallow thickly, golden syrup, sweet and anticipatory.

He bends his knees and locks his arms around Mingyu’s thighs, straightening easily back into a standing position. He knows there’s weight, bearing down in theory, muscle memory, but it feels like nothing at all. “You’re lucky you’re a good dongsaeng, Mingyu-yah,” Jeonghan laughs, not a hint of strain.

Up where he nearly grazes the ceiling, Mingyu’s face is flushed, and he taps at Jeonghan’s shoulder desperately. “Okay, I, uh! Please, um, let me down now,” he says, voice high and weird, and Jeonghan lets him down gently. Mingyu sits where he stood, drawing his knees up to his chest and staring at the door like it holds answers. Face satisfied, but also bright with revelation.

Seokmin and Hansol are gaping a little, two carp, mouths ajar, and it makes Jeonghan grin sheepishly. 

“Okay, I’ve thought about it, and I have decided I love it,” Jun announces suddenly, and the rest of the room laughs, Jihoon clutching at his arm with the effort. It reverberates.

“Me too, actually,” Jeonghan says, voice lingering over the laughter, a major chord and its fifth. Harmonious, belonging.

•

  
  


When Jeonghan next returns to the coven house, a week of work has gone by. It’s jarring to feel the difference between spending two weeks somewhere new and nesting in, making a home there of someone you care about, and then only seeing that someone in the wee hours of the morning by the river where you met. A little clandestine and not really good enough, especially when compensating for the grueling slog of cubicle work, even with Wonwoo sending memes from the next chair over.

So it’s like a weight dropping off when Jeonghan finally heads to the old building Friday evening, tucked between newer constructions, bricks aged and chipping in spots but patched in others. He fondly reregisters the small, worn flags and a newer, crisper pride flag hanging in the window, and slots his key into the lock.

No sooner does Jeonghan open the door than Seungkwan, luminous but incandescent, flashes by Jeonghan with a face like the unsettling angels in the Stone Art Museum, somehow both stoic and perpetually grimacing, beautiful all the same. Anyone else would blink and miss the shine of his eyes, the glimmer of cassiterite, translucent and wet in their darkness. But as soon as Jeonghan opens his mouth to acknowledge it, Seungkwan is gone with a slam of his bedroom door, the clatter of bells that must be hanging off the knob ringing through the heavy wood.

Soonyoung flutters out of his bedroom at the sound of the front door closing, and his arms wrap around Jeonghan’s waist, pressing a kiss against the downturned corner of Jeonghan’s frown while Jeonghan takes off his shoes.

“Hi, beautiful.”

“Seungkwan doesn’t like me,” Jeonghan says in response. Not a question, but an observation.

Soonyoung sighs and pulls away from Jeonghan, padding toward the kitchen in his own black socks. “It’s me he’s angry with, not you.” He considers for a moment, tossing over his shoulder, “Well, maybe with you a little, but it’s circumstantial. Collateral damage due to your association with me. It’s my fault, really.”

“That sounds awfully petty,” Jeonghan says, and he knows petty. He has played little games with the best of them, has held grudges and let things fester, a mold of it spreading fungus across his relationships. He’s better about it now, but he wonders that he couldn’t have kept some friendships if he had been a little more forgiving.

Soonyoung says, “He can be, but this time I really do understand. It’s touchy, for him, to think about having a partner.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not a commitment thing,” Soonyoung starts, but he seems to reconsider, absently opening the refrigerator and prying the lid off a container labeled  _ Chan’s, Do Not Eat, Soonyoung, I Fucking Mean It. _ “Well, not in so many words.”

“You talk about him like you’re close, present tense. Did something happen?”

Setting the leftovers to the side for a moment, Soonyoung kicks his heels against the cabinet doors when he lifts himself up onto the kitchen counter. Jeonghan smiles at the effortlessness of it and lets Soonyoung pull him close, untie his tie for him. His hand runs around Jeonghan’s neck, and when the cloth is tugged loose, end to end, he leans in. He presses a kiss onto Jeonghan’s stiff work collar where it covers his fang site, and Jeonghan squirms, feet fond and happy in his starchy work socks.

Soonyoung’s face is thoughtful when he answers Jeonghan’s question with another question. “How did you feel when I turned you?”

Jeonghan only has to think about it for a moment. “In the seconds before, it felt foregone. Like it was the only decision I would ever make. Every cell in my body was yours in that instant, and there was no fear whatsoever. It was just… right. That’s… that’s not typical, is it?”

He can feel, as he wades through the words, a warm tide pool of reminiscence and recollection, that it’s true, and Soonyoung’s soft hands tracing Jeonghan’s face serve only to confirm it.

“No, it’s not,” Soonyoung says, and he reaches down and turns Jeonghan’s tie over in his hands, fingertips tracing over the woven stripes in the silk. “Chan turned me because he needed to. There was an issue with another coven doing things their way, in their territory, and they got carried away. They fed from me, too aggressively, and I almost died. Chan protected me. He chose to. My choices didn’t start until I came to.”

A flare of belated resentment against the people responsible licks up Jeonghan’s torso, filling his chest where heartbeats lived, replacing them with hot little embers of anger and sadness, glowing and stokeable. It must show on his face, because Soonyoung brushes a lock of Jeonghan’s hair behind one ear and shakes his head, dousing them gently and letting them cool.

“I’ve done my healing. I’m grateful to Chan. And I know most days he’s glad too, though I’m sure he regrets it sometimes. I give him plenty of cause,” Soonyoung laughs sweetly. “But what I’m getting at is that most turns are more like mine, or like Shua’s, where we’re lucky to make it out the other side at all, and even then both parties have to spend our first few years or so working through the trauma and the stress. What you and I have is special, and not everyone gets to have that.

“It’s hard for Seungkwannie to confront, I think. To see what I’ve done and to think about what it means to turn someone. Shortly after Minghao turned him, he lost someone he loved because he wasn’t sure if a turn was the right thing to do. Seungkwan couldn’t do that for him, and his love faded away in front of him. He carries that with him.”

Jeonghan rests his forehead on Soonyoung’s shoulder. Everything about this was so immediate. One word, one blink, and they had their forever. Of course it stings for Seungkwan, to know that life, the universe, magnetized Jeonghan and Soonyoung, poles drawn together irreversibly, no horror or fear, just attraction and impulse and decision, and to know that it  _ worked.  _ That it works.

“I have time to wait for him to come around,” Jeonghan says, lifting his head up to look in Soonyoung’s eyes, where they’re warm and shiny, river water on a summer night. He’ll wait forever, if that’s what it takes. He has the time. “He’s important to you.”

“We’re it, for each other, you know? All of us. Everyone else in our lives comes and goes, that’s the nature of humanity or whatever, but  _ we  _ come back. We have each other, always. I was the first physical turn for this coven in centuries until Seungkwan came along, and he was so soon after me, it was perfect. We’re so alike. That’s why this hurts so bad.”

Soonyoung’s face crumples, and Jeonghan sees, instantly, that he didn’t mean to say it, but that it’s been tearing away at him and just slipped out, water cupped in your hands. Jeonghan slides his lips over Soonyoung’s cheekbones, leaves delicate petal presses onto his eyelids, and Soonyoung is crying, muffled soft against Jeonghan’s shoulder. 

It’s devastating, and Jeonghan doesn’t care that it answers a question he’s been asking inside for weeks. Answers shouldn’t come at this kind of cost. Jeonghan runs a hand through Soonyoung’s hair.

“You’d never know you’ve been on this planet for eighty years, because you clearly can’t read,” Chan gripes goodnaturedly, sidling past where Jeonghan stands between Soonyoung’s legs and snatching his food container, which Jeonghan now notices has a particularly claret kimchi jjigae inside.

Soonyoung laughs thickly, wiping at his eyes and pushing Jeonghan out of the way a little, linking their fingers so he doesn't stray too far. “You’ll be happy to know I didn’t actually get around to eating it, then,” he retorts, and Chan turns back to him, brows furrowed with concern. Soonyoung waves his other hand, dismissive, sniffling messily, an ugly precious thing. He half-jokes, “Don’t tell Seungkwan. He doesn’t need to know he has this much power.” 

Chan frowns harder. “He’s still—?”

Jeonghan nods, and tries to keep his face as neutral as possible when Chan runs his tongue over his fangs, clearly exasperated. He has more right to it, but it still twinges somewhere deep in Jeonghan’s stomach.

“I’m sorry,” he offers.

Chan all but inhales a mouthful of what Jeonghan strongly suspects is fucking vampiric kimchi jjigae (which, sure, absolutely, of course; also, it smells  _ incredible, _ mental note to ask if Chan can make him some next time) and he shakes his head, eerily echoing Soonyoung’s gesture from only moments ago, a mirror with a changed face. Jeonghan wonders when over the course of several decades they picked it up from one another, one of those proximity habits, like how Seungcheol and Minghao wrinkle their noses the same when they feel fond, or the way Joshua and Seungkwan cock their hips the same when someone says something they think is kind of stupid.

“You think, over the thousands of years of this coven’s history, that there is something you, personally, could do to fuck things up so royally that our coven falls apart after just a few months?” Chan says animatedly but slightly garbled with food, covering his mouth with a hand. The  _ no offense  _ goes unspoken, but soothes over Jeonghan and Soonyoung nevertheless, so much so that Soonyoung laughs again, this time less wetly.

Jeonghan smiles and runs his hand over Soonyoung’s knee, tracing his fingers over the seam of Soonyoung’s silk pants. Soonyoung presses a kiss, a little  _ thank you,  _ against Jeonghan’s temple. 

“Thanks, Chan.”

•

It’s only a matter of time before Mingyu and Seokmin corner Jeonghan. 

Jeonghan has one foot barely a centimeter out the door of the office when they flank him, nervous energy thrumming between them. He sees the way they look at each other, and he doesn’t need to read minds to know what’s happening, the tightening jaws and eager eyebrows meaning  _ You start. You talk first! I talk first? No, you! Come on! _

“Ask me now or you don’t get to,” Jeonghan says, mock-bored, loosening his tie and continuing to walk down the hallway toward the elevator.

It’s only a little annoying that they catch up to him quickly, long legs somehow, ridiculously, beating out vampire reflexes, and Jeonghan lets them look down at him with their big, shiny eyes, and feels his self-declared steel will bend a little.

“We want to go with you to the coven house,” Mingyu says, a little breathless with it. His t-shirt with the cute tutoring center logo (friendly pencils, three of them leaned up against one another, under a shining sun) is tight along his chest as it rises and falls, as though the effort of mustering up the courage to ask Jeonghan to do this winded him.

“Please,” Seokmin adds, and it sounds polite rather than desperate. Kind and curious, like the thrill lives in his fingertips and at the tips of his ears rather than where Mingyu’s does, in the pit of his stomach.

But Jeonghan gets a little idea, struck flint.

“Do you think that’s safe?” he asks calmly, running his tongue over his teeth, flicking at a fang disinterestedly. “Have you even met any other vampires besides me?”

Mingyu and Seokmin share another glance, eyes the same, shirts the same. Jeonghan watches Mingyu’s breath catch in his throat and almost starts to laugh.

“Well—”

As if interrupting, Seokmin smiles. “They’re  _ your _ coven. How dangerous can they be? We somehow wore you and Jihoon down and it only took like, two weeks.”

Jeonghan grumbles. It’s true, too. Only Wonwoo had welcomed them into the fold sooner, which should have been his first indicator that it was all inevitable, but they were so earnest, just radiating warmth and honesty. It was like their little faces turned toward them, plants to the sun, even while Jeonghan suspects the opposite is truer: the three of them brought drops of sunlight into their office block, and made the days a little more bearable. 

Jeonghan could never deny them anything.

The elevator  _ dings  _ open and Jeonghan steps in. Seokmin and Mingyu hesitate at the threshold, but Jeonghan raises an eyebrow. “Are you coming?”

“Wait, right now?” Mingyu says, plucking at his shirt, eyes a little panicked.

The truth is, they could do this at any point, really. The coven has no shortage of time to spend as they wish, but more than that, Jeonghan wonders how long it’s been since they’ve had guests, ones who know them, or want to know them, truly. It’s partly to satisfy his own curiosity, and the other part is to finally start to share this new side of his life with his friends, his family. He doesn’t want to become someone they don’t know.

There’s another little  _ ding,  _ and Jeonghan sticks out his foot to prevent the door from closing all the way. It bounces open against his shiny black loafer. “Move it or lose it, boys,” he laughs, fangs and all.

Seokmin tugs Mingyu by the hand to beat the elevator door closed the second time, and they slide in next to Jeonghan. On the way to the car, Jeonghan quickly types out a message on his phone, to which he nearly instantaneously receives a response.

“Chan says we’re good to go.” 

Mingyu tilts his head in confusion as he climbs into the backseat, hand still gripped tightly in Seokmin’s, eyes bright and curious.

“Soonyoung doesn’t have a cell phone,” Jeonghan explains casually, pulling out of the garage. “He was turned in the 1960s. I’ll probably get him one eventually. He likes to play with the emojis, though, so Joshua gets a lot of confusing emoji chains from my phone right now.”

Seokmin looks a little overwhelmed, but nods resolutely. Generously, he says after a minute or so, “Of course.”

Chan is already standing in the doorway when they arrive, and no sooner does he raise his hand to wave in greeting than Soonyoung flies out the door to wrap Seokmin in a hug, a bolt of lightning cooled against a brook. Jeonghan’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, disappearing under his hair, but Seokmin is laughing, wide and delighted.

“Soonyoung?”

“Seokmin!” Soonyoung beams.

“Am I missing something?” Jeonghan laughs, and Soonyoung presses excited kisses to his cheek, soft smacks like a typewriter.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Seokmin offers, face pulling shy with surprise and happiness, an unexpected gift.

Chan shrugs at Jeonghan, who says, “Guess not?”

Soonyoung is practically vibrating with glee, though. “I’m just so glad they’re here!”

“It’s been a long time since humans have been to the coven house,” Chan says to Mingyu, as though in explanation, and Mingyu gravitates toward him in response.

“‘A long time,’ yeah, try  _ ever,”  _ Soonyoung whines, tugging Jeonghan by the hand over the threshold, having started to yank Seokmin in but thinking better of it. Mingyu’s eyes flick to Soonyoung’s arms in his shirt, and Jeonghan ruffles his hair when they walk in together.

“I guess  _ technically _ there haven’t been any humans in  _ this _ one,” Chan says, “But I didn’t think you were going to try to argue semantics with me, Soonyoung-ah.”

Soonyoung pushes up his sleeves to his elbows and sniffs exaggeratedly, “You know very well this is the only home I’ve ever known, Chan.”

“We bought this after I turned you because the old one didn’t have enough space, this house was basically  _ for _ you—you know what, I’m not going to fight you about this, let’s call it now so we can preserve some sense of dignity and instill the appropriate amount of awe and fear into our guests,” Chan hisses.

Seokmin laughs, bright and giddy, and Mingyu catches on, a hoarse giggle that makes Jeonghan laugh, too.

“It didn’t work on me, what makes you think you’ll fare any better with them? It’s far too late for fear or awe, I’m afraid,” Jeonghan says, walking backwards at the head of the pack out of the entry hall and into the living room.

“And who’s this, Jeonghan?”

At the sound of the low voice, Jeonghan whirls around on the ball of one foot to see Seungcheol and Joshua standing in the center of the room, arms crossed and faces serious, trying to mask their amusement. He would call it out, but Seokmin and Mingyu go rigid, bowing with respect. Oh, no. 

It’s sweet, it is, and Jeonghan kind of wants to see it play out, so he says nothing, meeting Joshua’s eye and smirking.

Seungcheol lets a slow smile creep across his face, all long dark eyelashes and molasses-and-fangs. Next to him, Joshua looks every part a vampire prince, and there’s this beautiful way they stand together, like a celestial body. The light, sunlight glowing in the moon, and its dark side, the night in the day.

“Seungcheol-ssi, Joshua-ssi, thank you for having us,” Seokmin says, and Seungcheol’s smile, for an infinitesimal fraction of a second, cracks up to his eyes.

“It’s our pleasure, Seokmin,” Joshua says, warm even through his stained-glass veneer.

One eyebrow raising, Mingyu’s tongue presses against the inside of his mouth. “I know you’re fucking with us, but it’s still kind of working,” he laughs, and that’s it.

They all unfold, memory wrinkles like flattened origami, and the energy shifts as Chan starts coffee and tea in the kitchen, his voice floating around the wood cabinetry and curling around the living room furniture with the tinkling of cups and saucers. Mingyu wanders out to help him, and before long, the murmuring is tinged with a smile at the edges.

Joshua has this look on his face while Seokmin and Seungcheol talk, curious and open. His eyes are fond, like he’s remembering something, or like he blew the dust off his favorite book he hasn’t read in a while. 

Seungcheol’s hand rests comfortably on Joshua’s thigh as he leans forward, and Jeonghan sees their chests rise and fall together, a breath for the sake of it, to mirror Seokmin’s. They smile, all three, when Mingyu and Chan return, and Jeonghan wonders if they meant it to be in tandem.

He’s a little annoyed that it makes him feel so philosophical, honestly, especially since they’re having such a nice time. But. There’s a value you place on time the larger a portion of your life it is, Jeonghan thinks. Humans only live so long, so each moment is more influential, bigger, felt more, heavier, because it’s a larger percentage of their lived experience. Forever is abstract, is hyperbole. Jeonghan, despite how well he’s taken to it in that abstract sense, wonders if he’ll know when eternity has really come, even though the point of it is that it never does. Journey, not a destination, and all that. 

Watching his friends’ eyes meet his coven’s is disruptive, a train bulletting through the mouth of a tunnel where he can’t see it come out the other side. Just loud  _ whooshing _ and then nothing. Just the hope that it slows to a stop somewhere safe. Just the excitement of looking forward to a reunion at the station.

Soonyoung’s feet are restless, and his leg is thrown over Jeonghan’s, and his voice carries, quartz mine, over the room. His laughter rings, and Jeonghan can barely hear a door open and shut in the background.

Minghao all but floats out of his bedroom and wraps his arms around Jeonghan’s shoulders, leaning over one side to greet Seokmin and Mingyu. “Hi, I’m Minghao,” he says, voice refracting prettily like the sunlight hitting his jewelry.

Jeonghan can see and feel the way Seokmin and Mingyu’s next breath is that much deeper, an inhale not yet shuddering, and he eyes Minghao carefully. In Jeonghan’s periphery, Mingyu’s teeth catch on his bottom lip, sweet, as Mingyu recovers enough to say, “It’s really nice to meet you.” 

It’s a fair coin toss whether or not Mingyu is doing it on purpose, but Jeonghan’s known him long enough now that’s it’s probably safe to err on the horny side.

Minghao’s smile widens, giddiness spreading down across his face starting at his eyes. It’s palpable, too, and Jeonghan feels Soonyoung melt into his side at the sensation. He watches as Minghao unfurls himself from Jeonghan’s shoulders to glimmer up at where Mingyu stands next to Seokmin’s seat on the ottoman.

To Mingyu, Minghao says, “I like your bracelets,” and slips his hand down to trace over them, elegant fingers against rose gold and silver and golden skin, and it’s as though Mingyu is an instrument, taut strings perfectly tuned with a single touch.

“Thank you,” he says coyly, and Soonyoung giggles like an echo. 

To Seokmin, Minghao says, “I have someone I’d like you to meet.”

At that, Jeonghan’s eyes snap to Soonyoung, focused lens, and he’s practically glowing with eagerness. He meets Soonyoung’s gaze, sparkling tourmaline through mirthful eyelids, and instantly he knows what this is about.

_ Is this a good idea?  _ his eyes ask, and something about the way Soonyoung looks hopeful, his usual realistic optimism tempered with clarity, like he has a plan, reassures him in the same thought.

They don’t talk about Jeonghan’s sight, anymore, really. It’s normal, and he’s acclimated, the dust particles in the edges of his vision as much a part of everything he sees as anything else. But it’s moments like these that he realizes Soonyoung’s own ‘eye,’ as Seungcheol had put it once, is infinitely more valuable. Soonyoung has trouble ignoring his heart because it’s  _ right. _

“Trust me,” Soonyoung says sweetly against the shell of Jeonghan’s ear. And he does.

•

The first time Jeonghan sees Seungkwan smile, he almost doesn’t catch it. If he didn’t know better, he’d think it was a hallucination. Blink-and-you’d-miss-it. 

Luckily he doesn’t need to blink.

The low lights of the kitchen glow into the hallway a little, just enough that Jeonghan can clearly see it out of the corner of his eye. It flickers across Seungkwan’s face, moonlit cheeks pleased and soft, one fang flashing with the gentle curl of a smile. Jeonghan feels like he’s getting a glimpse of what Seungkwan used to look like, before Jeonghan stepped into the coven house. Maybe even before that, before Minghao stepped in to change his life forever, back in the 1980s when his cheeks were rosy with humanity and possibility. 

But even now it lights Seungkwan up like a flower blooming, a private thing, night jasmine, as he holds his cell phone close to his chest and traces his eyes over a message over and over.

Jeonghan has half a mind to duck out of the room before he’s caught intruding, even though it was Seungkwan who entered last. Something blooms in Jeonghan’s chest at the sight, though, and he can’t look away. Seungkwan lets out a little frustrated noise, soft like a dog running in its sleep, and tilts his head up toward the ceiling. He clutches his hands to his chest desperately, phone cradled screen-first against his chest as he pads quickly back toward his own room.

It’s so...  _ different. _ Jeonghan is almost taken aback. But then again — Everyone is different, now.

It’s the sunshine.

Ever since they all somehow agreed to cut the ribbon of humanity, the air in the coven house has changed, not least because it’s being breathed again. 

Jeonghan rolls his eyes a little to think that every metaphor really  _ is _ based in fact, that every turn of phrase he can use to try to explain this phenomenon is real. That they brought sunshine into the darkness and that the house feels alive in a way it didn’t before.

Soonyoung says Jeonghan is the link. Says that forever dragged on before, that time dulled to a slog. That the minutes were short but the days were long. 

The coven has had moments of happiness over the years, decades, centuries, absolutely, of kinship and covenship and knowing they have one another. Of doing things for others because the self is a tiny piece of the grand timeline, of fighting for things that will outlive everyone else, but not them. It’s easy to forget that even though they have forever, there are lots of tiny forevers being lived within it, both in spite of them and because of them.

So now:

Hansol and Wonwoo visit, and it’s like they were meant to know Chan forever. The sound of their laughter bounces out of the den, low voices rumbling like a distant waterfall. 

Jun and Jihoon visit, Soonyoung and Jeonghan sitting around the fireplace with them. Jeonghan thinks Soonyoung likes having Jun around the best because he has the worst, most teeth-grittingly unflattering stories of Jeonghan ever told in the history of time.

(“That’s what you get for spending ninety percent of your time in college together utterly trashed,” Jihoon says smugly, like he didn’t do the same thing at their rival university. So Jun retaliates with the office holiday party story, much to Jihoon’s horror and Soonyoung’s utter delight, and Jihoon turns into a vine-ripe tomato when Joshua laughs from the corner of the room.)

Mingyu visits. Often. He brings wine and movies, and the giant group of them pile into the den and watch new romances and old dramas in the middle of the day on the weekends, so everyone can hang out before Minghao goes to work at the haven. Sometimes they go out after, to a club or noraebang. Sometimes the humans fall asleep, and Seungcheol will drape a blanket over them, and this  _ feeling _ washes over Jeonghan, even when Minghao or Soonyoung aren't around.

And then there are other nights and days, when:

Mingyu looks dazed and a little wrecked as he wanders into the kitchen, an unstifleable smile wrenching its way onto his face where he’s gold above the constellation of—fangpricks, a whole galaxy of them wound around his side, dipping below his collarbone into his t-shirt and reappearing along his inner thigh in his little athletic shorts. Well.

He jumps, startled enough to restart a heartbeat, when Soonyoung wolf-whistles and Jeonghan starts to clap slowly.

“Oh, my god!” Mingyu gasps, ears flushed instantly. He tries to hide himself behind the kitchen table, as though he isn’t an anthropomorphic beanstalk, but Soonyoung and Jeonghan are not having it.

“We could say the same, sweet one,” Jeonghan purrs.

Soonyoung cackles. “You know, when I told Minghao I thought he would eat you alive, I didn’t mean it literally. But I’m glad it turned out like this. I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder.”

“Oh, my god,” Mingyu says again. He groans, tugging at his clothes and going pink-red with a blush. “I knew you would give me shit for this.”

“This is just the first time we’ve seen you like this, Minggoo, so forgive us for knowing you’ve been staying over with Hao for months and not giving you shit earlier. We haven’t been meeting expectations, and I’d like to apologize for that,” Jeonghan simpers. Mingyu’s expression flickers between murderous and fearful, a lovely combination that brings out the depth of his eyes.

“Wait. Oh, wow. Is this about your–” Soonyoung starts.

Horrified, Mingyu all but launches himself over the table to clamp his hand over Soonyoung’s mouth, wrestling his arms around him to quiet the undoubtedly obscene question and narrowing his eyes at Jeonghan. “No. No!”

Jeonghan raises a cool eyebrow and crosses his legs at the knee, prim and beautiful and a little smug. “I promise I didn’t tell him about your vampire fetish. Soonie’s just smart and perceptive. And also, your fear boner for Minghao was obvious the millisecond you met him.”

“I don’t have a vampire fetish, oh, my god!” A muffled noise ekes out around Mingyu’s hand, and he pulls it away from Soonyoung’s face with a disgusted look. “I can’t believe you licked me. You have  _ fangs _ and you chose to lick me?”

“What did you say, Soonyoung-ah?” Jeonghan asks sweetly, ignoring Mingyu’s protests.

Soonyoung beams, his own wavelength of light proud and beautiful amongst all this new sunshine. “Fear boner. Scare-rousal. Scared arousal.”

Jeonghan nods and points at Mingyu, laser-eyed with epiphany. “Yes. That’s it. That’s what you have.”

“I–” Mingyu sputters, a car struggling to start, key in the ignition but not going anywhere. “I don’t  _ have  _ anything, I’m not  _ afflicted.  _ I’m just in love with him!”

Oh! Soonyoung and Jeonghan fall silent with revelation, then, and Mingyu collapses into a chair next to them, pressing his face into the tabletop with a little noise, the whine of his engine failing.

“This is such a bad idea, right?” he says sadly, voice rough where it slides against the table.

“You could do much worse,” Soonyoung says, voice soft now, understanding, a warm blanket smoothed over Mingyu’s back. He reaches out, rubs the pad of his thumb softly over Jeonghan’s knee under the table. “Honestly, Mingyu-yah, I feel like I know you well enough now to say without checking that you really have had worse ideas.”

Mingyu’s cheek is squished up toward his eye, half a laugh and half a sigh. “But he’ll be here forever, hyung, and I… won’t.”

“Says who?” Jeonghan says simply, a hot knife through butter. He bares his teeth mildly, gesturing to his fangs when Mingyu raises his head to meet his gaze. “You never know.”

•

“Do you think he’ll want to?”

Jeonghan hums thoughtfully but doesn’t look up from his novel. “I don’t know. Mingyu is thoughtful. He may seem haphazard, all needy and hungry for love like the rest of us, but he’s considerate and smart. He’s not like me,” he laughs, and Soonyoung turns his head to look over at him from where he sits at the vanity, gives him a little frown at the slight hollowness of his laughter. Jeonghan waves a hand dismissively. “I’m kidding.”

Soonyoung pulls a face, crumpled paper, but lets it go, smooths it out. “I think if Mingyu says he wants it, Minghao will do it,” Soonyoung says.

“Mingyu  _ is _ extremely charming,” Jeonghan says, and adds, “They fit well. I think they’re a great match. They think things through.”

“Not like us, you mean?”

Jeonghan closes his book at Soonyoung’s tone, leans forward in the armchair, plush and velvety in the corner of Soonyoung’s bedroom. “What does it matter?”

“It matters because I don’t regret this! I don’t regret you, Jeonghan! You keep saying things that sound like a joke but make me wonder if you’ve changed your mind about this. Me. Or whatever.” Soonyoung shuffles his feet, sliding them along the fringe at the bottom of the settee, but his eyes bore straight into Jeonghan’s. Matching tide pools, moonlight lost in deceptive depth.

“Come here,” Jeonghan says, not opening his arms but turning his hands over so they’re palm-up. Open still.

Soonyoung hesitates, wavering, a buoy bobbing in space, but in another half a moment wraps himself around Jeonghan, legs arranged atop his lap in the chair. 

In close quarters like this, Jeonghan looks at him, really  _ looks.  _ It’s one of his favorite pastimes, and in his opinion the unparalleled best use of his clarity, but most of the time he does it when Soonyoung isn’t looking back at him. He reaches a hand up, sure fingertips tracing the curve of his brow down to a temple, a thumb watching the fine-grained marble of his cheek give under gentle pressure, and marvels, this and every moment, at how beautiful Soonyoung is.

“My sister used to talk a lot about fate, and destiny. She would make me tie wishes to trees and fold paper shapes and put all my hopes and dreams into them. They felt so childish after a while, you know? I stopped dreaming of being an idol or an actor or someone with an adventurous life, I went to school every day and after that I went to work every day. But I met you. So,” Jeonghan says. 

He uses his hand to tilt Soonyoung’s head down to drop a kiss onto his forehead. He pulls it back down to rest on Soonyoung’s waist and touches their foreheads together. 

_ I don’t like myself nearly as much as I love you,  _ Jeonghan doesn’t say, but Soonyoung lets the corners of his mouth quirk up, and it goes up to his eyes all sentimental with softness, and Jeonghan feels phantom warmth tingle in his empty chest.

“I was going to ask if I can say something cheesy, but I know better than to ask for permission, so I’m just going to say it,” Soonyoung says in a rush, like he just thought of it. The sound of it curls around Jeonghan’s head as Soonyoung gets out, just as quickly, “I think my forever started the day I met you.”

Jeonghan lets out a noise he’s never heard himself make before, somewhere between a honk and a sigh. It’s an embarrassing, visceral sound, one of those ugly ones he thought was impossible to make once you became a vampire, all perfect and pretty. Every day he proves himself wrong about something. He wonders if it’ll take fifty years to get a fucking grip. When he turns to look at him directly, Soonyoung’s face is earnest and  _ happy,  _ eyes all zircon-shimmery and cheeks all marbled-soft, and suddenly Jeonghan doesn’t mind if it takes five hundred.

“You were right not to ask,” Jeonghan laughs softly, and knocks his temple against Soonyoung’s.

“I’m trying to be romantic!” Soonyoung pouts.

“It’s working, and it’s very cute, and you’re very cute. Tell me more about how much you love me,” Jeonghan says with a grin, resting the tip of his tongue under one fang cheekily.

Soonyoung crowds impossibly closer into Jeonghan’s space and kisses below his ear, mumbling, “I owe everything to the river.”

He trails his lips further down Jeonghan’s neck, adding, “You came into my life with the wind, with the current, and I was swept away, too.”

And he presses a hot, openmouthed kiss over Jeonghan’s fang site, with a sigh of his name that makes the sharp focus of Jeonghan’s vision go wavy at the edges like the air above a fire. “Jeonghan,” is all Soonyoung murmurs, simple and sweet, and Jeonghan sees the center of the flame, gripping at Soonyoung’s jaw and crashing their mouths together in a searing kiss.

Jeonghan hopes he never gets used to the feeling of Soonyoung’s body against his, the sound of Soonyoung’s laugh cracking sylphlike and sparkling through the air like fireworks in hand, the way Soonyoung fights a smile off his face when he palms Soonyoung’s ass in the kitchen and earns an eyeroll from Joshua, or the look in Soonyoung’s eyes, garnet and obsidian and axinite, when Jeonghan lets out a little whine and pulls Soonyoung into him, pressing him up against the seatback.

Hopes he never gets used to the way Soonyoung takes over when he guides Soonyoung’s hands under his shirt and they roam lower on their own, to the shiver that runs down his back, Hangang River icing over, when Soonyoung’s eyes flash at the sound of Jeonghan murmuring lowly in his ear to ask, to the soft feeling of Soonyoung’s lips on his spine as he takes Jeonghan apart, soft velvet skin bent over the soft velvet chair.

It’s all soft, really, and Jeonghan hopes. Less  _ hopes,  _ maybe. More trusts. 

Trusts, as he whimpers soft for Soonyoung, that the way he presses his hand over Jeonghan’s heart is that forever promise, nails like fangs again, and trusts the shuddering way they fall apart together at the swipe of Soonyoung’s tongue over Jeonghan’s fang site, the praises Jeonghan moans against the cushions, trusts their closeness even when they aren’t this close.

(But especially loves it when they are.)

Hopes and trusts that everything else is falling together, too, though, lined up perfectly where you can’t see where one part ends and the other begins. The sky and the river at the horizon line.

•

It takes Jeonghan a while to notice that Seokmin has never come back to the coven house, but when he does, it’s impossible to shake.

“Seok-ah,” Jeonghan says innocently, “I’m beginning to think you don’t want to be our friend anymore.”

Seokmin freezes next to the supply cabinet, bundle of colorful rulers in hand. He turns to face Jeonghan where he leans in the doorway, and Jeonghan thinks he could have missed the waver preceding his smile in a previous life, a nudged crystal bowl rocking to a stop. But he doesn’t miss it now.

“Jeonghan-hyung!” Seokmin exclaims, dropping the rulers into their designated container and securing the lid. He always stays the latest at the center, working with the students until after the last one goes home, cleaning up afterward. “What makes you say that?”

Jeonghan sits atop one of the desks delicately, blinking to let all the colors in the room settle in his vision. The tutoring center is well-kept, panels on the wall dedicated to each subject, full of encouragements and highly-marked assignments, some visibly signed off by Seokmin, Hansol, and Mingyu. Their touch is all over the place, the art center and the appointment book on the reception desk and the music and rest area in the corner. Sunshine poured out all over the place, golden and warm with it. Not for the first time Jeonghan is overtaken by a feeling of fondness, baked into pride, for knowing them.

“I don’t know, maybe because you never visit us?”

“I visit you all the time!” Seokmin says, face pulling a little confused.

Jeonghan’s eyebrows knit together, but his tone weakens the longer he goes on, losing steam like an unlidded pot. “You do not. You never stop by the coven house!”

Seokmin goes a little pale, then, and goes back to the cabinet, reshuffling math flash cards and avoiding Jeonghan’s gaze. “I… I mean.”

Reaching over and grabbing a pencil out of the cup one desk over, Jeonghan rolls it between his hands. It feels like foam, pliable and delicate. An apt metaphor for the minds molded here, for the ability to write and rewrite one’s future, and also something to distract him from the feeling in the pit of his stomach due to the evasive way Seokmin is acting.

“Did… Seungkwan say something?” Jeonghan tries, uneven.

The flash cards slip out of Seokmin’s hands, fluttering to the floor with a laminated wobble, feathers from a moulted bird.

“No, I—well, I,” stammers Seokmin, dropping to his knees to pick up the cards, fingertips slipping on the plastic. 

Jeonghan hops off the desk, sat beside Seokmin with his legs straight out, to help. Well, under the guise of helping, at the very least. “If he was rude to you,” Jeonghan starts warningly, and he  _ knows  _ his fangs are bared, and Seokmin practically yelps in his haste to react.

“No!” Seokmin says, panicked, waving the  _ nine times eleven  _ flash card wildly. “He’s so nice!”

Whether it’s from surprise or muscle memory, Jeonghan’s not sure, but he blinks. Hard. As though that will reset his hearing, too. “Sorry?”

“He’s so kind, and so beautiful. He has such a sense of humor, and…” His voice trails off, wandering along the pathway over a hill and disappearing.

It’s almost like it’s in slow-motion, honestly, watching the color rise up Seokmin’s cheeks, warm on his ears against his purple t-shirt, and seeing the stumbling way his fingers scoop up the last of the cards and rubber-band them together, tucking them into their drawer.

“How long have you been in love with Seungkwan?” Jeonghan asks, looking up at Seokmin from the floor.

Seokmin’s blush is so becoming, in a way that Jeonghan knows he never was, even in blood and heartbeat. A potent mixture of nerves and adoration radiates from him, a summer sunset glowing over everything. Even though Seokmin is bashful, Jeonghan wants to fly into Soonyoung’s arms and tell him he’s beautiful and right and smart, no matter what anyone says, because Seokmin’s heart is beating out of his skin.

“I realized it a few weeks ago, but I don’t know when it happened. It’s like he was always meant to be there. I know how he is around you, hyung, but I won’t apologize for my feelings.”

When he visited his parents’ home for the first time after his turn, Jeonghan wasn’t nervous. He felt the same as he did the moment it happened. His family loves him, nothing is beyond them. His confidence and surety ran through his body where the blood used to be, and as he told them everything, let his sister click her nail against one of his fangs, Jeonghan knew without a doubt that love is the strongest instinct of all. He sees it, now, in Seokmin, and he’s proud.

“Good!” Jeonghan says, leaping to his feet gracefully and grasping for Seokmin’s hands. “Trust your heart. I’m so happy for you, Seok-ah. Let hyung take you to dinner.”

Seokmin’s face reaches confusion again, pulls back into that station with a hiss. “You’re serious?”

“I let Soonyoung turn me less than an hour after I met him. How could I be anything but happy for you?”

And arms are wrapped around Jeonghan, warm warm sunshine in the middle of the night, and Jeonghan laughs.

So when he comes back to the coven house a few hours later, spring in his step like the first bloom of the season, Jeonghan is in the mood for more good news.

Soonyoung doesn’t greet him at the door, though; he’s hovering at the entry to the living room, fangs sunken into his lip with worry, tacks in a pillow. Voices float out of the room, and there’s a dissonance Jeonghan can’t put his finger on. Jeonghan takes his place next to Soonyoung, sliding a comforting hand over the back of his neck and tugging at an earlobe. The corner of Soonyoung’s mouth quirks up and he presses a quick kiss to Jeonghan’s shoulder, but says nothing. It feels a little juvenile to hang back around the corner, but the tone in the living room plants him in place.

“But that’s why I wanted to talk to you. Mingyu asked me to turn him.”

“He what?” Seungkwan says, but with the edges shaved off. Somehow dull, scuffed. A tarnished ring, stone inlaid in a scratched setting.

Plainly, simply, an undercurrent of restrained joy: “I love him, and I’m going to turn him so we can be together.”

Curtly, restrained in its own way: “Right.”

“I wanted to tell you in private because I know what this means to you,” Minghao says. “When I turned you, I didn’t have to think about saving you. I saw something in you this world couldn’t lose. I know this seems sudden, but I’ve been alive for a long time, and Mingyu is the right choice for me. You needed to hear it from me, not anyone else.”

“I’m happy for you—” Seungkwan starts. 

So,

“Well, isn’t that enough, then? To be happy for them? Since Seokmin won’t come back to the coven house because of the way Seungkwan has been acting? I thought we were adults, a coven that chooses each other. Or was that all fake?” Jeonghan says coldly, striding into the room, Soonyoung closer than a step behind.

It’s their first real conversation, after months of sharing a space and a lifestyle and a fucking  _ coven, _ and with Soonyoung reeling at his side Jeonghan wishes beyond wishes it could have gone differently. 

With the briefest of attention Jeonghan registers Seungcheol appearing in the other doorway, but more importantly, Jeonghan gauges Seungkwan’s reaction, slowly winding up with the tense stretch of a rubber band, pulled tauter and tauter and tauter.

And Seungkwan snaps, the sting of it reeling across the room.

“Fuck you!” he shouts, burst forth like a slap. “How could you bring someone like that here in the first place?”

“You don’t want to think about what you’re saying for  _ one  _ second?  _ That’s _ what you’re gonna go with, Seungkwan? Seokmin is one of the kindest people you could ever  _ dream _ to meet. You’re going to play with his feelings like this? He loves you! How dare you? Soonyoung, I’m sorry, this is where I draw the line!” Jeonghan spits.

“Cheol! Say something!”

“Hang on, don’t get hyung to do your dirty work! You’re not even listening to me! I can’t—!” Seungkwan growls, frustrated, and bares his fangs, like he doesn’t know what else to do. “He’s… he’s  _ good _ and I’m—!”

“You’re scared,” Minghao says calmly, and the room seems to slow, shouts hung in the air like stars in the sky.

Seungkwan’s shoulders slump, but he tightens, like his core is burning, a white dwarf concentrated in his chest, heart aflame and mouth pinched in the corners, afraid.

Soonyoung drops down on a knee to look up at Seungkwan, eyes shimmering earnestly, a million facets picking up light. Seungkwan’s body is tense, and he won’t meet Soonyoung’s gaze. 

“Of course I’m scared,” Seungkwan says stiffly. “You know why.”

“You can’t let fear rule over you, Seungkwan-ah,” says Soonyoung, gentle.

“That’s easy for you to say!” Seungkwan snaps, pulling his arms tight around himself, and his face is hard, diamond and corundum, all ruby-and-sapphire drawn, even while he’s close to tears. “You fell in love with Jeonghan when he was night-walking the park, and all of a sudden you had your forever right there! In an instant! And I let my chance go, I let him _die_ when I had the choice, and I see his face every day in my mind, and I don’t,” a pause, a soft growl like an exhale, “I don’t– I don’t deserve another try.”

“That was almost forty years ago, Kwan-ah,” Seungcheol says. “It’s part of your forever, but it doesn’t have to be everything.”

Minghao says, “All love is forever, even if it ends.”

“He loves you,” Jeonghan repeats, softer, calmer. “Right now, Seokmin loves you. And you’re going to throw that away?”

Seungkwan looks like the wind has been knocked out of him. And it was, thirty-and-some years ago. And all Jeonghan wants is for breath to return, to meet and know the buoyant and warm Seungkwan that his coven knows. The one that Seokmin knows. He’s so excited for it to happen.

The silence lingers, not a breath among them. Still.

“I’m sorry,” Soonyoung says, a beat later. Breaking the silence, touching Seungkwan’s hand.

In a flurry, Seungkwan wraps his arms around Soonyoung, fallen to his knees in one movement, and murmurs something too quiet for Jeonghan to hear.

But Soonyoung laughs, head tilted back with it despite the matching tear tracks on his and Seungkwan’s faces, and opens his eyes to greet Jeonghan’s with love, bright and clear and infinite.

•

Jeonghan’s life is one long river, the befores and afters all rushing together in the forever of it all. It’s the most beautiful it’s ever been, here, after all these little tributaries ran into it, his friends and his coven and his Soonyoung.

Seungkwan tells him that it takes more than a decade for all the molecules in the water to evaporate fully, to be replaced with new ones, for it to be a new river altogether.

Jeonghan thinks the point in time where all the water overlaps is the best, sparkling in the earliest morning light, forever sapphire.

**Author's Note:**

> i have so much to say about this fic. thank you for reading, and i hope you liked it!! 
> 
> find me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/eightpaint/) and [curiouscat](http://www.curiouscat.me/pixiepower/)!


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